TERMS STARTING WITH
Substance is the term used to signify thit which is sought when philosophers investigate the primary being of things. Thus Plato was primarily concerned with investigating the being of things from the standpoint of their intelligibility. Hence the Platonic dialectic was aimed at a knowledge of the essential nature (ousia) of things. But science is knowledge of universals. so the essence of things considered as intelligible is the universal common to many; i.e., the universal Form or Idea, and this was for Plato the substance of things, or what they are primarily.
Substance: (Lat. sub + stare = Gr. hypo + stasis, to stand under. Also from Lat. quod quid est, or quod quid erat esse = Gr. to ti en einai, i.e., that by virtue of which a thing has its determinate nature, which makes it what it is, as distinguished from something else. See ousia, natura, subsistentia, essentia. Thus Augustine writes (De Trin. VII, ch. 4,
Substance over form – Refers to an accounting concept where the entity is accounting for items according to their substance and economic reality and not merely their legal form.
Substance-Principle. See PRINCIPLE
Substance. See MATTER
Substance: That which is present in an entity as the cause of its being. In occult philosophy, a distinction is made between material and spiritual substances. (Theosophy speaks also of a psychic substance.)
Substance Theory of Mind: The conception of the individual mind as a permanent, self-identical substance. (See Soul-Substance Theory). The Substance Theory is distinguished from the substantive theory by C. W. Morris, (Six Theories of Mind, Chs. I and V) but the distinction is difficult to maintain. -- L.W.
substance ::: 1. Essential nature; essence. 2. That of which a thing consists; physical matter or material. 3. That which is solid and practical in character, quality, or importance, as contrasted with an appearance or something unsubstantial.
substance abuse: a pattern of behaviour where a person relies excessively on a particular substance (e.g. alcohol or opioids such as heroin) which can ultimately interfere with the individuals daily functioning.
substance ::: “Substance, then, as we know it, material substance, is the form in which Mind acting through sense contacts the Conscious Being of which it is itself a movement of knowledge.” The Life Divine
substance dualism ::: A type of ontological dualism defended by Descartes in which it is claimed that there are two fundamental kinds of substance: mental and material. The mental does not extend in space, and the material cannot think. Substance dualism holds that immortal souls occupy an independent realm of existence, while apparently bodies die; this view contradicts physicalism.
substance monotheism ::: Found e.g. in some indigenous African religions, holds that the many gods are different forms of a single underlying substance, and that this underlying substance is God. This view has some similarities to the Christian trinitarian view of three persons sharing one nature.
substance P ::: An 11-amino acid neuropeptide; the first neuropeptide to be characterized.
substances.” In Reider, The Book of Wisdom,
substance ::: There substance was a resonant harp of self,
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. A curved or angular piece of metal or other hard substance for catching, pulling, holding, or suspending something. 2.* Fig.* That by which any one is attracted or ensnared and caught; a snare; a catch.
1. An image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed. 2. A mere image or semblance of something visible but without substance, as a phantom. 3. A false conception or notion; fallacy. Idol, idols.
1. A substance that gives nourishment; food. 2. Fig. Intellectual nourishment.
1. Having no real basis or foundation in fact; fanciful, insubstantial. 2. Having no bodily or material substance. 3. Lacking material substance; materially paltry.
1. Lacking substance, value, or basis. 2. Meaningless; senseless. 3. Futile; unavailing.
1. The act, power or property of appealing, alluring, enticing or inviting. 2. A thing or feature which draws by appealing to desires, tastes, etc. 3. The action of a body or substance in drawing to itself, by some physical force, another to which it is not materially attached; the force thus exercised. attractions.
abaculus ::: n. --> A small tile of glass, marble, or other substance, of various colors, used in making ornamental patterns in mosaic pavements.
abietite ::: n. --> A substance resembling mannite, found in the needles of the common silver fir of Europe (Abies pectinata).
abrasion ::: n. --> The act of abrading, wearing, or rubbing off; the wearing away by friction; as, the abrasion of coins.
The substance rubbed off.
A superficial excoriation, with loss of substance under the form of small shreds.
absorbent ::: a. --> Absorbing; swallowing; absorptive. ::: n. --> Anything which absorbs.
Any substance which absorbs and neutralizes acid fluid in the stomach and bowels, as magnesia, chalk, etc.; also a substance e. g., iodine) which acts on the absorbent vessels so as to reduce
abstergent ::: a. --> Serving to cleanse, detergent. ::: n. --> A substance used in cleansing; a detergent; as, soap is an abstergent.
accession ::: n. --> A coming to; the act of acceding and becoming joined; as, a king&
acescent ::: a. --> Turning sour; readily becoming tart or acid; slightly sour. ::: n. --> A substance liable to become sour.
acid ::: a. --> Sour, sharp, or biting to the taste; tart; having the taste of vinegar: as, acid fruits or liquors. Also fig.: Sour-tempered.
Of or pertaining to an acid; as, acid reaction. ::: n. --> A sour substance.
One of a class of compounds, generally but not always
adamant ::: n. 1. Any impenetrably or unyieldingly hard substance. 2. A legendary stone of impenetrable hardness, formerly sometimes identified with the diamond. adj. **3. Unshakeable, inflexible, utterly unyielding. 4. Incapable of being broken, dissolved, or penetrated; immovable, impregnable. adamantine.**
adamant ::: n. --> A stone imagined by some to be of impenetrable hardness; a name given to the diamond and other substances of extreme hardness; but in modern mineralogy it has no technical signification. It is now a rhetorical or poetical name for the embodiment of impenetrable hardness.
Lodestone; magnet.
addict ::: one who is attached by one"s own inclination to an activity, habit or substance; devoted, given up to.
A deep, intense or massive substance of peace and stillness is very commonly the first of its powers that descends and many experience it in that way. At first it comes and stays only during
adhere ::: v. i. --> To stick fast or cleave, as a glutinous substance does; to become joined or united; as, wax to the finger; the lungs sometimes adhere to the pleura.
To hold, be attached, or devoted; to remain fixed, either by personal union or conformity of faith, principle, or opinion; as, men adhere to a party, a cause, a leader, a church.
To be consistent or coherent; to be in accordance; to agree.
adhesive ::: a. --> Sticky; tenacious, as glutinous substances.
Apt or tending to adhere; clinging.
adipic ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or derived from, fatty or oily substances; -- applied to certain acids obtained from fats by the action of nitric acid.
adipocere ::: n. --> A soft, unctuous, or waxy substance, of a light brown color, into which the fat and muscle tissue of dead bodies sometimes are converted, by long immersion in water or by burial in moist places. It is a result of fatty degeneration.
adj. **1. Void or empty space. 2. Having a cavity, gap, or space within. 3. Fig. Without substance or character; devoid of truth or validity; specious. n. 3. A void space. 4. A cavity, opening, space, or burrow. hollows.**
adjuvant ::: n. --> A substance added to an immunogenic agent to enhance the production of antibodies.
A substance added to a formulation of a drug which enhances the effect of the active ingredient.
An assistant.
An ingredient, in a prescription, which aids or modifies the action of the principal ingredient.
admixture ::: n. --> The act of mixing; mixture.
The compound formed by mixing different substances together.
That which is mixed with anything.
adulterate ::: v. t. --> To defile by adultery.
To corrupt, debase, or make impure by an admixture of a foreign or a baser substance; as, to adulterate food, drink, drugs, coin, etc. ::: v. i. --> To commit adultery.
aerification ::: n. --> The act of combining air with another substance, or the state of being filled with air.
The act of becoming aerified, or of changing from a solid or liquid form into an aeriform state; the state of being aeriform.
aeromancy ::: n. --> Divination from the state of the air or from atmospheric substances; also, forecasting changes in the weather.
agama ::: n. --> A genus of lizards, one of the few which feed upon vegetable substances; also, one of these lizards.
agglutinant ::: a. --> Uniting, as glue; causing, or tending to cause, adhesion. ::: n. --> Any viscous substance which causes bodies or parts to adhere.
agglutinate ::: v. t. --> To unite, or cause to adhere, as with glue or other viscous substance; to unite by causing an adhesion of substances. ::: a. --> United with glue or as with glue; cemented together.
Consisting of root words combined but not materially altered as to form or meaning; as, agglutinate forms, languages, etc.
agglutination ::: n. --> The act of uniting by glue or other tenacious substance; the state of being thus united; adhesion of parts.
Combination in which root words are united with little or no change of form or loss of meaning. See Agglutinative, 2.
air ::: 1. The transparent, invisible, inodorous, and tasteless gaseous substance which envelopes the earth. 2. *Fig. With reference to its unsubstantial or impalpable nature. 3. Outward appearance, apparent character, manner, look, style: esp. in phrases like ‘an air of absurdity"; less commonly of a thing tangible, as ‘the air of a mansion". 4. Mien or gesture (expressive of a personal quality or emotion). *air"s.
airy ::: a. --> Consisting of air; as, an airy substance; the airy parts of bodies.
Relating or belonging to air; high in air; aerial; as, an airy flight.
Open to a free current of air; exposed to the air; breezy; as, an airy situation.
Resembling air; thin; unsubstantial; not material; airlike.
Relating to the spirit or soul; delicate; graceful; as, airy
alban ::: n. --> A white crystalline resinous substance extracted from gutta-percha by the action of alcohol or ether.
albino ::: n. --> A person, whether negro, Indian, or white, in whom by some defect of organization the substance which gives color to the skin, hair, and eyes is deficient or in a morbid state. An albino has a skin of a milky hue, with hair of the same color, and eyes with deep red pupil and pink or blue iris. The term is also used of the lower animals, as white mice, elephants, etc.; and of plants in a whitish condition from the absence of chlorophyll.
albuminate ::: n. --> A substance produced by the action of an alkali upon albumin, and resembling casein in its properties; also, a compound formed by the union of albumin with another substance.
albuminin ::: n. --> The substance of the cells which inclose the white of birds&
albumin ::: n. --> A thick, viscous nitrogenous substance, which is the chief and characteristic constituent of white of eggs and of the serum of blood, and is found in other animal substances, both fluid and solid, also in many plants. It is soluble in water and is coagulated by heat and by certain chemical reagents.
albuminose ::: n. --> A diffusible substance formed from albumin by the action of natural or artificial gastric juice. See Peptone. ::: a. --> Pertaining to, or containing, albumen; having the properties of, or resembling, albumen or albumin.
alburnous ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to alburnum; of the alburnum; as, alburnous substances.
alchemy ::: Any magical or miraculous power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value. alchemies.
alchemy ::: any magical or miraculous power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value. alchemies.
alcoholization ::: n. --> The act of reducing a substance to a fine or impalpable powder.
The act rectifying spirit.
Saturation with alcohol; putting the animal system under the influence of alcoholic liquor.
aleurone ::: n. --> An albuminoid substance which occurs in minute grains ("protein granules") in maturing seeds and tubers; -- supposed to be a modification of protoplasm.
alimentary ::: a. --> Pertaining to aliment or food, or to the function of nutrition; nutritious; alimental; as, alimentary substances.
aliment ::: n. --> That which nourishes; food; nutriment; anything which feeds or adds to a substance in natural growth. Hence: The necessaries of life generally: sustenance; means of support.
An allowance for maintenance. ::: v. t. --> To nourish; to support.
alkalescency ::: n. --> A tendency to become alkaline; or the state of a substance in which alkaline properties begin to be developed, or to predominant.
alkaloid ::: a. --> Alt. of Alkaloidal ::: n. --> An organic base, especially one of a class of substances occurring ready formed in the tissues of plants and the bodies of animals.
allantoin ::: n. --> A crystalline, transparent, colorless substance found in the allantoic liquid of the fetal calf; -- formerly called allantoic acid and amniotic acid.
allomorph ::: n. --> Any one of two or more distinct crystalline forms of the same substance; or the substance having such forms; -- as, carbonate of lime occurs in the allomorphs calcite and aragonite.
A variety of pseudomorph which has undergone partial or complete change or substitution of material; -- thus limonite is frequently an allomorph after pyrite.
allotropize ::: v. t. --> To change in physical properties but not in substance.
alloxantin ::: n. --> A substance produced by acting upon uric with warm and very dilute nitric acid.
alloy ::: 1. A substance composed of two or more metals, or of a metal or metals with a nonmetal, intimately mixed, as by fusion or electrodeposition; a less costly metal mixed with a more valuable one, such as that which is added to gold and silver coinage. 2. Admixture, as with good with evil.
amadou ::: n. --> A spongy, combustible substance, prepared from fungus (Boletus and Polyporus) which grows on old trees; German tinder; punk. It has been employed as a styptic by surgeons, but its common use is as tinder, for which purpose it is prepared by soaking it in a strong solution of niter.
amarine ::: n. --> A characteristic crystalline substance, obtained from oil of bitter almonds.
ambergris ::: n. --> A substance of the consistence of wax, found floating in the Indian Ocean and other parts of the tropics, and also as a morbid secretion in the intestines of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), which is believed to be in all cases its true origin. In color it is white, ash-gray, yellow, or black, and often variegated like marble. The floating masses are sometimes from sixty to two hundred and twenty-five pounds in weight. It is wholly volatilized as a white vapor at 212¡ Fahrenheit, and is highly valued in perfumery.
ambrein ::: n. --> A fragrant substance which is the chief constituent of ambergris.
::: "A Mind, a Will seems to have imagined and organised the universe, but it has veiled itself behind its creation; its first erection has been this screen of an inconscient Energy and a material form of substance, at once a disguise of its presence and a plastic creative basis on which it could work as an artisan uses for his production of forms and patterns a dumb and obedient material.” The Life Divine
“A Mind, a Will seems to have imagined and organised the universe, but it has veiled itself behind its creation; its first erection has been this screen of an inconscient Energy and a material form of substance, at once a disguise of its presence and a plastic creative basis on which it could work as an artisan uses for his production of forms and patterns a dumb and obedient material.” The Life Divine
amine ::: n. --> One of a class of strongly basic substances derived from ammonia by replacement of one or more hydrogen atoms by a basic atom or radical.
amorphous ::: a. --> Having no determinate form; of irregular; shapeless.
Without crystallization in the ultimate texture of a solid substance; uncrystallized.
Of no particular kind or character; anomalous.
amount ::: n. --> To go up; to ascend.
To rise or reach by an accumulation of particular sums or quantities; to come (to) in the aggregate or whole; -- with to or unto.
To rise, reach, or extend in effect, substance, or influence; to be equivalent; to come practically (to); as, the testimony amounts to very little.
The sum total of two or more sums or quantities; the aggregate; the whole quantity; a totality; as, the amount of 7 and 9 is
amphiarthrosis ::: n. --> A form of articulation in which the bones are connected by intervening substance admitting slight motion; symphysis.
amphichroic ::: a. --> Exhibiting or producing two colors, as substances which in the color test may change red litmus to blue and blue litmus to red.
amygdalin ::: n. --> A glucoside extracted from bitter almonds as a white, crystalline substance.
amyloid ::: a. --> Alt. of Amyloidal ::: n. --> A non-nitrogenous starchy food; a starchlike substance.
The substance deposited in the organs in amyloid degeneration.
analysis ::: n. --> A resolution of anything, whether an object of the senses or of the intellect, into its constituent or original elements; an examination of the component parts of a subject, each separately, as the words which compose a sentence, the tones of a tune, or the simple propositions which enter into an argument. It is opposed to synthesis.
The separation of a compound substance, by chemical processes, into its constituents, with a view to ascertain either (a) what elements it contains, or (b) how much of each element is present.
analyze ::: v. t. --> To subject to analysis; to resolve (anything complex) into its elements; to separate into the constituent parts, for the purpose of an examination of each separately; to examine in such a manner as to ascertain the elements or nature of the thing examined; as, to analyze a fossil substance; to analyze a sentence or a word; to analyze an action to ascertain its morality.
anasarca ::: n. --> Dropsy of the subcutaneous cellular tissue; an effusion of serum into the cellular substance, occasioning a soft, pale, inelastic swelling of the skin.
anastate ::: n. --> One of a series of substances formed, in secreting cells, by constructive or anabolic processes, in the production of protoplasm; -- opposed to katastate.
"And if there is, as there must be in the nature of things, an ascending series in the scale of substance from Matter to Spirit, it must be marked by a progressive diminution of these capacities most characteristic of the physical principle and a progressive increase of the opposite characteristics which will lead us to the formula of pure spiritual self-extension. This is to say that they must be marked by less and less bondage to the form, more and more subtlety and flexibility of substance and force, more and more interfusion, interpenetration, power of assimilation, power of interchange, power of variation, transmutation, unification. Drawing away from durability of form, we draw towards eternity of essence; drawing away from our poise in the persistent separation and resistance of physical Matter, we draw near to the highest divine poise in the infinity, unity and indivisibility of Spirit.” The Life Divine
“And if there is, as there must be in the nature of things, an ascending series in the scale of substance from Matter to Spirit, it must be marked by a progressive diminution of these capacities most characteristic of the physical principle and a progressive increase of the opposite characteristics which will lead us to the formula of pure spiritual self-extension. This is to say that they must be marked by less and less bondage to the form, more and more subtlety and flexibility of substance and force, more and more interfusion, interpenetration, power of assimilation, power of interchange, power of variation, transmutation, unification. Drawing away from durability of form, we draw towards eternity of essence; drawing away from our poise in the persistent separation and resistance of physical Matter, we draw near to the highest divine poise in the infinity, unity and indivisibility of Spirit.” The Life Divine
And yet even there the exactness is only apparent ; the very fact of translation into another substance and another rhythm of manifestation makes a difTcrencc. It is something new that has manifested and it is that that makes the creation worth while.
anelectric ::: a. --> Not becoming electrified by friction; -- opposed to idioelectric. ::: n. --> A substance incapable of being electrified by friction.
anemonic ::: a. --> An acrid, poisonous, crystallizable substance, obtained from, the anemone, or from anemonin.
anemonin ::: n. --> An acrid, poisonous, crystallizable substance, obtained from some species of anemone.
anethol ::: n. --> A substance obtained from the volatile oils of anise, fennel, etc., in the form of soft shining scales; -- called also anise camphor.
anoint ::: v. t. --> To smear or rub over with oil or an unctuous substance; also, to spread over, as oil.
To apply oil to or to pour oil upon, etc., as a sacred rite, especially for consecration. ::: p. p. --> Anointed.
antichlor ::: n. --> Any substance (but especially sodium hyposulphite) used in removing the excess of chlorine left in paper pulp or stuffs after bleaching.
antimony ::: n. --> An elementary substance, resembling a metal in its appearance and physical properties, but in its chemical relations belonging to the class of nonmetallic substances. Atomic weight, 120. Symbol, Sb.
antiseptic ::: a. --> Alt. of Antiseptical ::: n. --> A substance which prevents or retards putrefaction, or destroys, or protects from, putrefactive organisms; as, salt, carbolic acid, alcohol, cinchona.
antitoxine ::: n. --> A substance (sometimes the product of a specific micro-organism and sometimes naturally present in the blood or tissues of an animal), capable of producing immunity from certain diseases, or of counteracting the poisonous effects of pathogenic bacteria.
apothem ::: n. --> The perpendicular from the center to one of the sides of a regular polygon.
A deposit formed in a liquid extract of a vegetable substance by exposure to the air.
arabin ::: n. --> A carbohydrate, isomeric with cane sugar, contained in gum arabic, from which it is extracted as a white, amorphous substance.
Mucilage, especially that made of gum arabic.
argon ::: n. --> A substance regarded as an element, contained in the atmosphere and remarkable for its chemical inertness.
aroma ::: n. --> The quality or principle of plants or other substances which constitutes their fragrance; agreeable odor; as, the aroma of coffee.
Fig.: The fine diffusive quality of intellectual power; flavor; as, the subtile aroma of genius.
arsenic ::: n. --> One of the elements, a solid substance resembling a metal in its physical properties, but in its chemical relations ranking with the nonmetals. It is of a steel-gray color and brilliant luster, though usually dull from tarnish. It is very brittle, and sublimes at 356¡ Fahrenheit. It is sometimes found native, but usually combined with silver, cobalt, nickel, iron, antimony, or sulphur. Orpiment and realgar are two of its sulphur compounds, the first of which is the true arsenicum of the ancients. The element and its compounds are
arseniureted ::: a. --> Combined with arsenic; -- said some elementary substances or radicals; as, arseniureted hydrogen.
artiad ::: a. --> Even; not odd; -- said of elementary substances and of radicals the valence of which is divisible by two without a remainder.
asarone ::: n. --> A crystallized substance, resembling camphor, obtained from the Asarum Europaeum; -- called also camphor of asarum.
aseptic ::: a. --> Not liable to putrefaction; nonputrescent. ::: n. --> An aseptic substance.
ashes ::: n. pl. --> The earthy or mineral particles of combustible substances remaining after combustion, as of wood or coal.
Specifically: The remains of the human body when burnt, or when "returned to dust" by natural decay.
The color of ashes; deathlike paleness.
asparagine ::: n. --> A white, nitrogenous, crystallizable substance, C4H8N2O3+H2O, found in many plants, and first obtained from asparagus. It is believed to aid in the disposition of nitrogenous matter throughout the plant; -- called also altheine.
assamar ::: n. --> The peculiar bitter substance, soft or liquid, and of a yellow color, produced when meat, bread, gum, sugar, starch, and the like, are roasted till they turn brown.
assimilate ::: v. t. --> To bring to a likeness or to conformity; to cause a resemblance between.
To liken; to compa/e.
To appropriate and transform or incorporate into the substance of the assimilating body; to absorb or appropriate, as nourishment; as, food is assimilated and converted into organic tissue. ::: v. i.
assimilation ::: n. --> The act or process of assimilating or bringing to a resemblance, likeness, or identity; also, the state of being so assimilated; as, the assimilation of one sound to another.
The conversion of nutriment into the fluid or solid substance of the body, by the processes of digestion and absorption, whether in plants or animals.
assimilative ::: a. --> Tending to, or characterized by, assimilation; that assimilates or causes assimilation; as, an assimilative process or substance.
associate ::: v. t. --> To join with one, as a friend, companion, partner, or confederate; as, to associate others with us in business, or in an enterprise.
To join or connect; to combine in acting; as, particles of gold associated with other substances.
To connect or place together in thought.
To accompany; to keep company with.
"As supramental Truth is not merely a sublimation of our mental ideas, so Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance.” Letters on Yoga
“As supramental Truth is not merely a sublimation of our mental ideas, so Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance.” Letters on Yoga
astriction ::: n. --> The act of binding; restriction; also, obligation.
A contraction of parts by applications; the action of an astringent substance on the animal economy.
Constipation.
Astringency.
An obligation to have the grain growing on certain lands ground at a certain mill, the owner paying a toll.
astringency ::: n. --> The quality of being astringent; the power of contracting the parts of the body; that quality in medicines or other substances which causes contraction of the organic textures; as, the astringency of tannin.
astringent ::: a. --> Drawing together the tissues; binding; contracting; -- opposed to laxative; as, astringent medicines; a butter and astringent taste; astringent fruit.
Stern; austere; as, an astringent type of virtue. ::: n. --> A medicine or other substance that produces contraction
atmolysis ::: n. --> The act or process of separating mingled gases of unequal diffusibility by transmission through porous substances.
attrahent ::: v. t. --> Attracting; drawing; attractive. ::: n. --> That which attracts, as a magnet.
A substance which, by irritating the surface, excites action in the part to which it is applied, as a blister, an epispastic, a sinapism.
attrition ::: n. --> The act of rubbing together; friction; the act of wearing by friction, or by rubbing substances together; abrasion.
The state of being worn.
Grief for sin arising only from fear of punishment or feelings of shame. See Contrition.
aura ::: n. --> Any subtile, invisible emanation, effluvium, or exhalation from a substance, as the aroma of flowers, the odor of the blood, a supposed fertilizing emanation from the pollen of flowers, etc.
The peculiar sensation, as of a light vapor, or cold air, rising from the trunk or limbs towards the head, a premonitory symptom of epilepsy or hysterics.
"Awake, God"s ray and witness in my breast, ::: In the undying substance of my soul
azobenzene ::: n. --> A substance (C6H5.N2.C6H5) derived from nitrobenzene, forming orange red crystals which are easily fusible.
bag ::: n. --> A sack or pouch, used for holding anything; as, a bag of meal or of money.
A sac, or dependent gland, in animal bodies, containing some fluid or other substance; as, the bag of poison in the mouth of some serpents; the bag of a cow.
A sort of silken purse formerly tied about men&
bait ::: v. i. --> Any substance, esp. food, used in catching fish, or other animals, by alluring them to a hook, snare, inclosure, or net.
Anything which allures; a lure; enticement; temptation.
A portion of food or drink, as a refreshment taken on a journey; also, a stop for rest and refreshment.
A light or hasty luncheon.
To stop to take a portion of food and drink for refreshment of one&
ballast ::: a. --> Any heavy substance, as stone, iron, etc., put into the hold to sink a vessel in the water to such a depth as to prevent capsizing.
Any heavy matter put into the car of a balloon to give it steadiness.
Gravel, broken stone, etc., laid in the bed of a railroad to make it firm and solid.
The larger solids, as broken stone or gravel, used in
ball ::: n. --> Any round or roundish body or mass; a sphere or globe; as, a ball of twine; a ball of snow.
A spherical body of any substance or size used to play with, as by throwing, knocking, kicking, etc.
A general name for games in which a ball is thrown, kicked, or knocked. See Baseball, and Football.
Any solid spherical, cylindrical, or conical projectile of lead or iron, to be discharged from a firearm; as, a cannon ball; a
barbituric acid ::: --> A white, crystalline substance, CH2(CO.NH)2.CO, derived from alloxantin, also from malonic acid and urea, and regarded as a substituted urea.
bar ::: n. --> A piece of wood, metal, or other material, long in proportion to its breadth or thickness, used as a lever and for various other purposes, but especially for a hindrance, obstruction, or fastening; as, the bars of a fence or gate; the bar of a door.
An indefinite quantity of some substance, so shaped as to be long in proportion to its breadth and thickness; as, a bar of gold or of lead; a bar of soap.
Anything which obstructs, hinders, or prevents; an
baroscope ::: n. --> Any instrument showing the changes in the weight of the atmosphere; also, less appropriately, any instrument that indicates -or foreshadows changes of the weather, as a deep vial of liquid holding in suspension some substance which rises and falls with atmospheric changes.
basilicon ::: n. --> An ointment composed of wax, pitch, resin, and olive oil, lard, or other fatty substance.
bathe ::: 1. To become immersed in or as if in liquid, as a bath or in other substances or elements. 2. To wash or pour over; suffuse or envelope, like sunshine. bathed, bathing.
bathybius ::: n. --> A name given by Prof. Huxley to a gelatinous substance found in mud dredged from the Atlantic and preserved in alcohol. He supposed that it was free living protoplasm, covering a large part of the ocean bed. It is now known that the substance is of chemical, not of organic, origin.
bdellium ::: n. --> An unidentified substance mentioned in the Bible (Gen. ii. 12, and Num. xi. 7), variously taken to be a gum, a precious stone, or pearls, or perhaps a kind of amber found in Arabia.
A gum resin of reddish brown color, brought from India, Persia, and Africa.
beebread ::: n. --> A brown, bitter substance found in some of the cells of honeycomb. It is made chiefly from the pollen of flowers, which is collected by bees as food for their young.
beer ::: n. --> A fermented liquor made from any malted grain, but commonly from barley malt, with hops or some other substance to impart a bitter flavor.
A fermented extract of the roots and other parts of various plants, as spruce, ginger, sassafras, etc.
benzamide ::: n. --> A transparent crystalline substance, C6H5.CO.NH2, obtained by the action of ammonia upon chloride of benzoyl, as also by several other reactions with benzoyl compounds.
benzile ::: n. --> A yellowish crystalline substance, C6H5.CO.CO.C6H5, formed from benzoin by the action of oxidizing agents, and consisting of a doubled benzoyl radical.
benzoin ::: n. --> A resinous substance, dry and brittle, obtained from the Styrax benzoin, a tree of Sumatra, Java, etc., having a fragrant odor, and slightly aromatic taste. It is used in the preparation of benzoic acid, in medicine, and as a perfume.
A white crystalline substance, C14H12O2, obtained from benzoic aldehyde and some other sources.
The spicebush (Lindera benzoin).
berberine ::: n. --> An alkaloid obtained, as a bitter, yellow substance, from the root of the barberry, gold thread, and other plants.
bergmeal ::: n. --> An earthy substance, resembling fine flour. It is composed of the shells of infusoria, and in Lapland and Sweden is sometimes eaten, mixed with flour or ground birch bark, in times of scarcity. This name is also given to a white powdery variety of calcite.
betaine ::: n. --> A nitrogenous base, C5H11NO2, produced artificially, and also occurring naturally in beet-root molasses and its residues, from which it is extracted as a white crystalline substance; -- called also lycine and oxyneurine. It has a sweetish taste.
betulin ::: n. --> A substance of a resinous nature, obtained from the outer bark of the common European birch (Betula alba), or from the tar prepared therefrom; -- called also birch camphor.
bihydroguret ::: n. --> A compound of two atoms of hydrogen with some other substance.
birdlime ::: n. --> An extremely adhesive viscid substance, usually made of the middle bark of the holly, by boiling, fermenting, and cleansing it. When a twig is smeared with this substance it will hold small birds which may light upon it. Hence: Anything which insnares. ::: v. t. --> To smear with birdlime; to catch with birdlime; to
bitter ::: n. --> AA turn of the cable which is round the bitts.
Any substance that is bitter. See Bitters. ::: v. t. --> Having a peculiar, acrid, biting taste, like that of wormwood or an infusion of hops; as, a bitter medicine; bitter as aloes.
bitumen ::: n. --> Mineral pitch; a black, tarry substance, burning with a bright flame; Jew&
biuret ::: n. --> A white, crystalline, nitrogenous substance, C2O2N3H5, formed by heating urea. It is intermediate between urea and cyanuric acid.
black vomit ::: --> A copious vomiting of dark-colored matter; or the substance so discharged; -- one of the most fatal symptoms in yellow fever.
blancmange ::: n. --> A preparation for desserts, etc., made from isinglass, sea moss, cornstarch, or other gelatinous or starchy substance, with mild, usually sweetened and flavored, and shaped in a mold.
bliss ::: “For from the divine Bliss, the original Delight of existence, the Lord of Immortality comes pouring the wine of that Bliss, the mystic Soma, into these jars of mentalised living matter; eternal and beautiful, he enters into these sheaths of substance for the integral transformation of the being and nature.” The Life Divine
blister ::: n. --> A vesicle of the skin, containing watery matter or serum, whether occasioned by a burn or other injury, or by a vesicatory; a collection of serous fluid causing a bladderlike elevation of the cuticle.
Any elevation made by the separation of the film or skin, as on plants; or by the swelling of the substance at the surface, as on steel.
A vesicatory; a plaster of Spanish flies, or other matter,
block ::: n. 1. A solid piece of a hard substance, such as wood, stone, etc. having one or more flat sides. Also fig. 2. Something that obstructs; an obstacle. blocks. *v. 3. To impede, retard, prevent or obstruct the progress or achievement of (someone or something). Also fig.*
bodiless ::: having no body, form, or substance; incorporeal. (Sri Aurobindo also employs the word as a n.) Bodiless.
body ::: 1. The entire material or physical structure of an organism, especially of a human or animal as differentiated from the soul. 2. The entire physical structure of a human being. 3. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 4. Substance. 5. An agent or entity. 6. The mass of a thing. 7. A mass of matter that is distinct from other masses. 8. The largest or main part of anything; the foundation; central part. body"s, bodies.
body ::: n. --> The material organized substance of an animal, whether living or dead, as distinguished from the spirit, or vital principle; the physical person.
The trunk, or main part, of a person or animal, as distinguished from the limbs and head; the main, central, or principal part, as of a tree, army, country, etc.
The real, as opposed to the symbolical; the substance, as opposed to the shadow.
bole ::: n. --> The trunk or stem of a tree, or that which is like it.
An aperture, with a wooden shutter, in the wall of a house, for giving, occasionally, air or light; also, a small closet.
A measure. See Boll, n., 2.
Any one of several varieties of friable earthy clay, usually colored more or less strongly red by oxide of iron, and used to color and adulterate various substances. It was formerly used in medicine. It is composed essentially of hydrous silicates of alumina, or more rarely
boncilate ::: n. --> A substance composed of ground bone, mineral matters, etc., hardened by pressure, and used for making billiard balls, boxes, etc.
bone ::: n. --> The hard, calcified tissue of the skeleton of vertebrate animals, consisting very largely of calcic carbonate, calcic phosphate, and gelatine; as, blood and bone.
One of the pieces or parts of an animal skeleton; as, a rib or a thigh bone; a bone of the arm or leg; also, any fragment of bony substance. (pl.) The frame or skeleton of the body.
Anything made of bone, as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.
Two or four pieces of bone held between the fingers and
borer ::: n. --> One that bores; an instrument for boring.
A marine, bivalve mollusk, of the genus Teredo and allies, which burrows in wood. See Teredo.
Any bivalve mollusk (Saxicava, Lithodomus, etc.) which bores into limestone and similar substances.
One of the larvae of many species of insects, which penetrate trees, as the apple, peach, pine, etc. See Apple borer, under Apple.
boron ::: n. --> A nonmetallic element occurring abundantly in borax. It is reduced with difficulty to the free state, when it can be obtained in several different forms; viz., as a substance of a deep olive color, in a semimetallic form, and in colorless quadratic crystals similar to the diamond in hardness and other properties. It occurs in nature also in boracite, datolite, tourmaline, and some other minerals. Atomic weight 10.9. Symbol B.
bougie ::: n. --> A long, flexible instrument, that is
A long slender rod consisting of gelatin or some other substance that melts at the temperature of the body. It is impregnated with medicine, and designed for introduction into urethra, etc.
boza ::: n. --> An acidulated fermented drink of the Arabs and Egyptians, made from millet seed and various astringent substances; also, an intoxicating beverage made from hemp seed, darnel meal, and water.
brazilin ::: n. --> A substance contained in both Brazil wood and Sapan wood, from which it is extracted as a yellow crystalline substance which is white when pure. It is colored intensely red by alkalies.
broth ::: n. --> Liquid in which flesh (and sometimes other substances, as barley or rice) has been boiled; thin or simple soup.
bryonin ::: n. --> A bitter principle obtained from the root of the bryony (Bryonia alba and B. dioica). It is a white, or slightly colored, substance, and is emetic and cathartic.
bubble ::: anything that lacks firmness, substance, or permanence.
buff ::: n. --> A sort of leather, prepared from the skin of the buffalo, dressed with oil, like chamois; also, the skins of oxen, elks, and other animals, dressed in like manner.
The color of buff; a light yellow, shading toward pink, gray, or brown.
A military coat, made of buff leather.
The grayish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat. See Buffy coat, under Buffy, a.
bulk ::: n. --> Magnitude of material substance; dimensions; mass; size; as, an ox or ship of great bulk.
The main mass or body; the largest or principal portion; the majority; as, the bulk of a debt.
The cargo of a vessel when stowed.
The body. ::: v. i.
bully tree ::: --> The name of several West Indian trees of the order Sapotaceae, as Dipholis nigra and species of Sapota and Mimusops. Most of them yield a substance closely resembling gutta-percha.
burring machine ::: --> A machine for cleansing wool of burs, seeds, and other substances.
butterine ::: n. --> A substance prepared from animal fat with some other ingredients intermixed, as an imitation of butter.
butter ::: n. --> An oily, unctuous substance obtained from cream or milk by churning.
Any substance resembling butter in degree of consistence, or other qualities, especially, in old chemistry, the chlorides, as butter of antimony, sesquichloride of antimony; also, certain concrete fat oils remaining nearly solid at ordinary temperatures, as butter of cacao, vegetable butter, shea butter.
One who, or that which, butts.
"But the gnosis is not only light, it is force; it is creative knowledge, it is the self-effective truth of the divine Idea. This idea is not creative imagination, not something that constructs in a void, but light and power of eternal substance, truth-light full of truth-force; and it brings out what is latent in being, it does not create a fiction that never was in being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“But the gnosis is not only light, it is force; it is creative knowledge, it is the self-effective truth of the divine Idea. This idea is not creative imagination, not something that constructs in a void, but light and power of eternal substance, truth-light full of truth-force; and it brings out what is latent in being, it does not create a fiction that never was in being.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"By the supermind is meant the full Truth-Consciousness of the Divine Nature in which there can be no place for the principle of division and ignorance; it is always a full light and knowledge superior to all mental substance or mental movement.” Letters on Yoga
“By the supermind is meant the full Truth-Consciousness of the Divine Nature in which there can be no place for the principle of division and ignorance; it is always a full light and knowledge superior to all mental substance or mental movement.” Letters on Yoga
cable ::: n. --> A large, strong rope or chain, of considerable length, used to retain a vessel at anchor, and for other purposes. It is made of hemp, of steel wire, or of iron links.
A rope of steel wire, or copper wire, usually covered with some protecting or insulating substance; as, the cable of a suspension bridge; a telegraphic cable.
A molding, shaft of a column, or any other member of convex, rounded section, made to resemble the spiral twist of a rope; -- called
cachalot ::: n. --> The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). It has in the top of its head a large cavity, containing an oily fluid, which, after death, concretes into a whitish crystalline substance called spermaceti. See Sperm whale.
caesium ::: n. --> A rare alkaline metal found in mineral water; -- so called from the two characteristic blue lines in its spectrum. It was the first element discovered by spectrum analysis, and is the most strongly basic and electro-positive substance known. Symbol Cs. Atomic weight 132.6.
caffeine ::: n. --> A white, bitter, crystallizable substance, obtained from coffee. It is identical with the alkaloid theine from tea leaves, and with guaranine from guarana.
calcification ::: n. --> The process of change into a stony or calcareous substance by the deposition of lime salt; -- normally, as in the formation of bone and of teeth; abnormally, as in calcareous degeneration of tissue.
calcigenous ::: a. --> Tending to form, or to become, a calx or earthlike substance on being oxidized or burnt; as magnesium, calcium. etc.
calcination ::: n. --> The act or process of disintegrating a substance, or rendering it friable by the action of heat, esp. by the expulsion of some volatile matter, as when carbonic and acid is expelled from carbonate of calcium in the burning of limestone in order to make lime.
The act or process of reducing a metal to an oxide or metallic calx; oxidation.
calcine ::: v. i. --> To reduce to a powder, or to a friable state, by the action of heat; to expel volatile matter from by means of heat, as carbonic acid from limestone, and thus (usually) to produce disintegration; as to, calcine bones.
To oxidize, as a metal by the action of heat; to reduce to a metallic calx.
To be converted into a powder or friable substance, or into a calx, by the action of heat.
calcium ::: n. --> An elementary substance; a metal which combined with oxygen forms lime. It is of a pale yellow color, tenacious, and malleable. It is a member of the alkaline earth group of elements. Atomic weight 40. Symbol Ca.
calefacient ::: a. --> Making warm; heating. ::: n. --> A substance that excites warmth in the parts to which it is applied, as mustard.
calendulin ::: n. --> A gummy or mucilaginous tasteless substance obtained from the marigold or calendula, and analogous to bassorin.
calipash ::: n. --> A part of a turtle which is next to the upper shell. It contains a fatty and gelatinous substance of a dull greenish tinge, much esteemed as a delicacy in preparations of turtle.
calipee ::: n. --> A part of a turtle which is attached to the lower shell. It contains a fatty and gelatinous substance of a light yellowish color, much esteemed as a delicacy.
callus ::: n. --> Same as Callosity
The material of repair in fractures of bone; a substance exuded at the site of fracture, which is at first soft or cartilaginous in consistence, but is ultimately converted into true bone and unites the fragments into a single piece.
The new formation over the end of a cutting, before it puts out rootlets.
calomel ::: n. --> Mild chloride of mercury, Hg2Cl2, a heavy, white or yellowish white substance, insoluble and tasteless, much used in medicine as a mercurial and purgative; mercurous chloride. It occurs native as the mineral horn quicksilver.
calumbin ::: n. --> A bitter principle extracted as a white crystalline substance from the calumba root.
calx ::: n. --> Quicklime.
The substance which remains when a metal or mineral has been subjected to calcination or combustion by heat, and which is, or may be, reduced to a fine powder.
Broken and refuse glass, returned to the post.
camphene ::: n. --> One of a series of substances C10H16, resembling camphor, regarded as modified terpenes.
candied ::: a. --> Preserved in or with sugar; incrusted with a candylike substance; as, candied fruits.
Converted wholly or partially into sugar or candy; as candied sirup.
Conted or more or less with sugar; as, candidied raisins
Figuratively; Honeyed; sweet; flattering.
Covered or incrusted with that which resembles sugar or candy.
caoutchouc ::: n. --> A tenacious, elastic, gummy substance obtained from the milky sap of several plants of tropical South America (esp. the euphorbiaceous tree Siphonia elastica or Hevea caoutchouc), Asia, and Africa. Being impermeable to liquids and gases, and not readly affected by exposure to air, acids, and alkalies, it is used, especially when vulcanized, for many purposes in the arts and in manufactures. Also called India rubber (because it was first brought from India, and was formerly used chiefly for erasing pencil marks) and gum elastic. See
capsaicin ::: n. --> A colorless crystalline substance extracted from the Capsicum annuum, and giving off vapors of intense acridity.
caramel ::: n. --> Burnt sugar; a brown or black porous substance obtained by heating sugar. It is soluble in water, and is used for coloring spirits, gravies, etc.
A kind of confectionery, usually a small cube or square of tenacious paste, or candy, of varying composition and flavor.
carbazol ::: n. --> A white crystallized substance, C12H8NH, derived from aniline and other amines.
carbonize ::: v. t. --> To convert (an animal or vegetable substance) into a residue of carbon by the action of fire or some corrosive agent; to char.
To impregnate or combine with carbon, as in making steel by cementation.
carbon ::: n. --> An elementary substance, not metallic in its nature, which is present in all organic compounds. Atomic weight 11.97. Symbol C. it is combustible, and forms the base of lampblack and charcoal, and enters largely into mineral coals. In its pure crystallized state it constitutes the diamond, the hardest of known substances, occuring in monometric crystals like the octahedron, etc. Another modification is graphite, or blacklead, and in this it is soft, and occurs in hexagonal prisms or tables. When united with oxygen it forms carbon dioxide,
carbostyril ::: n. --> A white crystalline substance, C9H6N.OH, of acid properties derived from one of the amido cinnamic acids.
carditis ::: n. --> Inflammation of the fleshy or muscular substance of the heart. See Endocarditis and Pericarditis.
carminative ::: a. --> Expelling wind from the body; warming; antispasmodic. ::: n. --> A substance, esp. an aromatic, which tends to expel wind from the alimentary canal, or to relieve colic, griping, or flatulence.
carnification ::: n. --> The act or process of turning to flesh, or to a substance resembling flesh.
carnin ::: n. --> A white crystalline nitrogenous substance, found in extract of meat, and related to xanthin.
carnivorous ::: a. --> Eating or feeding on flesh. The term is applied: (a) to animals which naturally seek flesh for food, as the tiger, dog, etc.; (b) to plants which are supposed to absorb animal food; (c) to substances which destroy animal tissue, as caustics.
carnosity ::: n. --> A fleshy excrescence; esp. a small excrescence or fungous growth.
Fleshy substance or quality; fleshy covering.
carotin ::: n. --> A red crystallizable tasteless substance, extracted from the carrot.
carvene ::: n. --> An oily substance, C10H16, extracted from oil caraway.
caryophyllin ::: n. --> A tasteless and odorless crystalline substance, extracted from cloves, polymeric with common camphor.
cascarillin ::: n. --> A white, crystallizable, bitter substance extracted from oil of cascarilla.
casein ::: n. --> A proteid substance present in both the animal and the vegetable kingdom. In the animal kingdom it is chiefly found in milk, and constitutes the main part of the curd separated by rennet; in the vegetable kingdom it is found more or less abundantly in the seeds of leguminous plants. Its reactions resemble those of alkali albumin.
casing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Case
of Cash ::: n. --> The act or process of inclosing in, or covering with, a case or thin substance, as plaster, boards, etc.
An outside covering, for protection or ornament, or to
cassowary ::: n. --> A large bird, of the genus Casuarius, found in the east Indies. It is smaller and stouter than the ostrich. Its head is armed with a kind of helmet of horny substance, consisting of plates overlapping each other, and it has a group of long sharp spines on each wing which are used as defensive organs. It is a shy bird, and runs with great rapidity. Other species inhabit New Guinea, Australia, etc.
castoreum ::: n. --> A peculiar bitter orange-brown substance, with strong, penetrating odor, found in two sacs between the anus and external genitals of the beaver; castor; -- used in medicine as an antispasmodic, and by perfumers.
castorin ::: n. --> A white crystalline substance obtained from castoreum.
catalectic ::: a. --> Wanting a syllable at the end, or terminating in an imperfect foot; as, a catalectic verse.
Incomplete; partial; not affecting the whole of a substance.
cataplasm ::: n. --> A soft and moist substance applied externally to some part of the body; a poultice.
catechin ::: n. --> One of the tannic acids, extracted from catechu as a white, crystalline substance; -- called also catechuic acid, and catechuin.
cathode ::: n. --> The part of a voltaic battery by which the electric current leaves substances through which it passes, or the surface at which the electric current passes out of the electrolyte; the negative pole; -- opposed to anode.
cation ::: n. --> An electro-positive substance, which in electro-decomposition is evolved at the cathode; -- opposed to anion.
caustic ::: a. --> Alt. of Caustical
Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
A caustic curve or caustic surface.
caustical ::: a. --> Capable of destroying the texture of anything or eating away its substance by chemical action; burning; corrosive; searing.
Severe; satirical; sharp; as, a caustic remark.
cauterant ::: n. --> A cauterizing substance.
cedrene ::: n. --> A rich aromatic oil, C15H24, extracted from oil of red cedar, and regarded as a polymeric terpene; also any one of a class of similar substances, as the essential oils of cloves, cubebs, juniper, etc., of which cedrene proper is the type.
celluloid ::: n. --> A substance composed essentially of gun cotton and camphor, and when pure resembling ivory in texture and color, but variously colored to imitate coral, tortoise shell, amber, malachite, etc. It is used in the manufacture of jewelry and many small articles, as combs, brushes, collars, and cuffs; -- originally called xylonite.
cellulose ::: a. --> Consisting of, or containing, cells. ::: n. --> The substance which constitutes the essential part of the solid framework of plants, of ordinary wood, linen, paper, etc. It is also found to a slight extent in certain animals, as the tunicates. It is a carbohydrate, (C6H10O5)n, isomeric with starch, and is
cementation ::: n. --> The act or process of cementing.
A process which consists in surrounding a solid body with the powder of other substances, and heating the whole to a degree not sufficient to cause fusion, the physical properties of the body being changed by chemical combination with powder; thus iron becomes steel by cementation with charcoal, and green glass becomes porcelain by cementation with sand.
cement ::: n. --> Any substance used for making bodies adhere to each other, as mortar, glue, etc.
A kind of calcined limestone, or a calcined mixture of clay and lime, for making mortar which will harden under water.
The powder used in cementation. See Cementation, n., 2.
Bond of union; that which unites firmly, as persons in friendship, or men in society.
The layer of bone investing the root and neck of a tooth;
cerasin ::: n. --> A white amorphous substance, the insoluble part of cherry gum; -- called also meta-arabinic acid.
A gummy mucilaginous substance; -- called also bassorin, tragacanthin, etc.
cerealin ::: n. --> A nitrogenous substance closely resembling diastase, obtained from bran, and possessing the power of converting starch into dextrin, sugar, and lactic acid.
cerebriform ::: a. --> Like the brain in form or substance.
cerebrin ::: n. --> A nonphosphorized, nitrogenous substance, obtained from brain and nerve tissue by extraction with boiling alcohol. It is uncertain whether it exists as such in nerve tissue, or is a product of the decomposition of some more complex substance.
cerin ::: n. --> A waxy substance extracted by alcohol or ether from cork; sometimes applied also to the portion of beeswax which is soluble in alcohol.
A variety of the mineral allanite.
cerosin ::: n. --> A waxy substance obtained from the bark of the sugar cane, and crystallizing in delicate white laminae.
cerotin ::: n. --> A white crystalline substance, C27H55.OH, obtained from Chinese wax, and regarded as an alcohol of the marsh gas series; -- called also cerotic alcohol, ceryl alcohol.
cetin ::: n. --> A white, waxy substance, forming the essential part of spermaceti.
cetrarin ::: n. --> A white substance extracted from the lichen, Iceland moss (Cetraria Islandica). It consists of several ingredients, among which is cetraric acid, a white, crystalline, bitter substance.
chalaza ::: n. --> The place on an ovule, or seed, where its outer coats cohere with each other and the nucleus.
A spiral band of thickened albuminous substance which exists in the white of the bird&
chalk ::: n. --> A soft, earthy substance, of a white, grayish, or yellowish white color, consisting of calcium carbonate, and having the same composition as common limestone.
Finely prepared chalk, used as a drawing implement; also, by extension, a compound, as of clay and black lead, or the like, used in the same manner. See Crayon. ::: v. t.
charcoal ::: v. t. --> Impure carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used for fuel and in various mechanical, artistic, and chemical processes.
Finely prepared charcoal in small sticks, used as a drawing implement.
chelerythrine ::: n. --> An alkaloidal principle obtained from the celandine, and named from the red color of its salts. It is a colorless crystalline substance, and acts as an acrid narcotic poison. It is identical with sanguinarine.
chemical ::: a. --> Pertaining to chemistry; characterized or produced by the forces and operations of chemistry; employed in the processes of chemistry; as, chemical changes; chemical combinations. ::: n. --> A substance used for producing a chemical effect; a reagent.
chemism ::: n. --> The force exerted between the atoms of elementary substance whereby they unite to form chemical compounds; chemical attaction; affinity; -- sometimes used as a general expression for chemical activity or relationship.
chemistry ::: n. --> That branch of science which treats of the composition of substances, and of the changes which they undergo in consequence of alterations in the constitution of the molecules, which depend upon variations of the number, kind, or mode of arrangement, of the constituent atoms. These atoms are not assumed to be indivisible, but merely the finest grade of subdivision hitherto attained. Chemistry deals with the changes in the composition and constitution of molecules. See Atom, Molecule.
chemolysis ::: n. --> A term sometimes applied to the decomposition of organic substance into more simple bodies, by the use of chemical agents alone.
chitin ::: n. --> A white amorphous horny substance forming the harder part of the outer integument of insects, crustacea, and various other invertebrates; entomolin.
chloranil ::: n. --> A yellow crystalline substance, C6Cl4.O2, regarded as a derivative of quinone, obtained by the action of chlorine on certain benzene derivatives, as aniline.
chlorine ::: n. --> One of the elementary substances, commonly isolated as a greenish yellow gas, two and one half times as heavy as air, of an intensely disagreeable suffocating odor, and exceedingly poisonous. It is abundant in nature, the most important compound being common salt. It is powerful oxidizing, bleaching, and disinfecting agent. Symbol Cl. Atomic weight, 35.4.
chloro- ::: --> A prefix denoting that chlorine is an ingredient in the substance named.
chlorocruorin ::: n. --> A green substance, supposed to be the cause of the green color of the blood in some species of worms.
cholesterin ::: n. --> A white, fatty, crystalline substance, tasteless and odorless, found in animal and plant products and tissue, and especially in nerve tissue, in the bile, and in gallstones.
chondrin ::: n. --> A colorless, amorphous, nitrogenous substance, tasteless and odorless, formed from cartilaginous tissue by long-continued action of boiling water. It is similar to gelatin, and is a large ingredient of commercial gelatin.
chrysaniline ::: n. --> A yellow substance obtained as a by-product in the manufacture of rosaniline. It dyes silk a fine golden-yellow color.
chrysarobin ::: n. --> A bitter, yellow substance forming the essential constituent of Goa powder, and yielding chrysophanic acid proper; hence formerly called also chrysphanic acid.
chrysene ::: n. --> One of the higher aromatic hydrocarbons of coal tar, allied to naphthalene and anthracene. It is a white crystalline substance, C18H12, of strong blue fluorescence, but generally colored yellow by impurities.
chrysogen ::: n. --> A yellow crystalline substance extracted from crude anthracene.
chutnee ::: n. --> A warm or spicy condiment or pickle made in India, compounded of various vegetable substances, sweets, acids, etc.
cicutoxin ::: n. --> The active principle of the water hemlock (Cicuta) extracted as a poisonous gummy substance.
cinchonidine ::: n. --> One of the quinine group of alkaloids, found especially in red cinchona bark. It is a white crystalline substance, C19H22N2O, with a bitter taste and qualities similar to, but weaker than, quinine; -- sometimes called also cinchonidia.
cineritious ::: a. --> Like ashes; having the color of ashes, -- as the cortical substance of the brain.
cinnamone ::: n. --> A yellow crystalline substance, (C6H5.C2H2)2CO, the ketone of cinnamic acid.
cirrhosis ::: n. --> A disease of the liver in which it usually becomes smaller in size and more dense and fibrous in consistence; hence sometimes applied to similar changes in other organs, caused by increase in the fibrous framework and decrease in the proper substance of the organ.
civet ::: n. --> A substance, of the consistence of butter or honey, taken from glands in the anal pouch of the civet (Viverra civetta). It is of clear yellowish or brownish color, of a strong, musky odor, offensive when undiluted, but agreeable when a small portion is mixed with another substance. It is used as a perfume.
The animal that produces civet (Viverra civetta); -- called also civet cat. It is carnivorous, from two to three feet long, and of a brownish gray color, with transverse black bands and spots on the
cleavage ::: n. --> The act of cleaving or splitting.
The quality possessed by many crystallized substances of splitting readily in one or more definite directions, in which the cohesive attraction is a minimum, affording more or less smooth surfaces; the direction of the dividing plane; a fragment obtained by cleaving, as of a diamond. See Parting.
Division into laminae, like slate, with the lamination not necessarily parallel to the plane of deposition; -- usually
clump ::: n. --> An unshaped piece or mass of wood or other substance.
A cluster; a group; a thicket.
The compressed clay of coal strata. ::: v. t. --> To arrange in a clump or clumps; to cluster; to group.
coagulation ::: n. --> The change from a liquid to a thickened, curdlike, insoluble state, not by evaporation, but by some kind of chemical reaction; as, the spontaneous coagulation of freshly drawn blood; the coagulation of milk by rennet, or acid, and the coagulation of egg albumin by heat. Coagulation is generally the change of an albuminous body into an insoluble modification.
The substance or body formed by coagulation.
coal ::: n. --> A thoroughly charred, and extinguished or still ignited, fragment from wood or other combustible substance; charcoal.
A black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, dug from beds or veins in the earth to be used for fuel, and consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact, and often affording, when heated, a large amount of volatile matter. ::: v. t.
coal tar ::: --> A thick, black, tarry liquid, obtained by the distillation of bituminous coal in the manufacture of illuminating gas; used for making printer&
coating ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Coat ::: n. --> A coat or covering; a layer of any substance, as a cover or protection; as, the coating of a retort or vial.
Cloth for coats; as, an assortment of coatings.
coat ::: n. --> An outer garment fitting the upper part of the body; especially, such a garment worn by men.
A petticoat.
The habit or vesture of an order of men, indicating the order or office; cloth.
An external covering like a garment, as fur, skin, wool, husk, or bark; as, the horses coats were sleek.
A layer of any substance covering another; a cover; a
cocaine ::: n. --> A powerful alkaloid, C17H21NO4, obtained from the leaves of coca. It is a bitter, white, crystalline substance, and is remarkable for producing local insensibility to pain.
codeine ::: n. --> One of the opium alkaloids; a white crystalline substance, C18H21NO3, similar to and regarded as a derivative of morphine, but much feebler in its action; -- called also codeia.
coerulignone ::: n. --> A bluish violet, crystalline substance obtained in the purification of crude wood vinegar. It is regarded as a complex quinone derivative of diphenyl; -- called also cedriret.
coinhere ::: v. i. --> To inhere or exist together, as in one substance.
collection ::: n. --> The act or process of collecting or of gathering; as, the collection of specimens.
That which is collected
A gathering or assemblage of objects or of persons.
A gathering of money for charitable or other purposes, as by passing a contribution box for freewill offerings.
That which is obtained in payment of demands.
An accumulation of any substance.
colloid ::: a. --> Resembling glue or jelly; characterized by a jellylike appearance; gelatinous; as, colloid tumors. ::: n. --> A substance (as albumin, gum, gelatin, etc.) which is of a gelatinous rather than a crystalline nature, and which diffuses itself through animal membranes or vegetable parchment more slowly than
colocynthin ::: n. --> The active medicinal principle of colocynth; a bitter, yellow, crystalline substance, regarded as a glucoside.
columbin ::: n. --> A white, crystalline, bitter substance. See Calumbin.
combination ::: n. --> The act or process of combining or uniting persons and things.
The result of combining or uniting; union of persons or things; esp. a union or alliance of persons or states to effect some purpose; -- usually in a bad sense.
The act or process of uniting by chemical affinity, by which substances unite with each other in definite proportions by weight to form distinct compounds.
combine ::: v. t. --> To unite or join; to link closely together; to bring into harmonious union; to cause or unite so as to form a homogeneous substance, as by chemical union.
To bind; to hold by a moral tie. ::: v. i. --> To form a union; to agree; to coalesce; to confederate.
combustible ::: a. --> Capable of taking fire and burning; apt to catch fire; inflammable.
Easily kindled or excited; quick; fiery; irascible. ::: n. --> A substance that may be set on fire, or which is liable to take fire and burn.
compendious ::: a. --> Containing the substance or general principles of a subject or work in a narrow compass; abridged; summarized.
compose ::: v. t. --> To form by putting together two or more things or parts; to put together; to make up; to fashion.
To form the substance of, or part of the substance of; to constitute.
To construct by mental labor; to design and execute, or put together, in a manner involving the adaptation of forms of expression to ideas, or to the laws of harmony or proportion; as, to compose a sentence, a sermon, a symphony, or a picture.
compost ::: n. --> A mixture; a compound.
A mixture for fertilizing land; esp., a composition of various substances (as muck, mold, lime, and stable manure) thoroughly mingled and decomposed, as in a compost heap. ::: v. t. --> To manure with compost.
compound ::: n. --> In the East Indies, an inclosure containing a house, outbuildings, etc.
That which is compounded or formed by the union or mixture of elements ingredients, or parts; a combination of simples; a compound word; the result of composition.
A union of two or more ingredients in definite proportions by weight, so combined as to form a distinct substance; as, water is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen.
compressible ::: a. --> Capable of being pressed together or forced into a narrower compass, as an elastic or spongy substance.
condensation ::: n. --> The act or process of condensing or of being condensed; the state of being condensed.
The act or process of reducing, by depression of temperature or increase of pressure, etc., to another and denser form, as gas to the condition of a liquid or steam to water.
A rearrangement or concentration of the different constituents of one or more substances into a distinct and definite compound of greater complexity and molecular weight, often resulting in
condiment ::: n. --> Something used to give relish to food, and to gratify the taste; a pungment and appetizing substance, as pepper or mustard; seasoning.
conductor ::: n. --> One who, or that which, conducts; a leader; a commander; a guide; a manager; a director.
One in charge of a public conveyance, as of a railroad train or a street car.
The leader or director of an orchestra or chorus.
A substance or body capable of being a medium for the transmission of certain forces, esp. heat or electricity; specifically, a lightning rod.
confection ::: n. --> A composition of different materials.
A preparation of fruits or roots, etc., with sugar; a sweetmeat.
A composition of drugs.
A soft solid made by incorporating a medicinal substance or substances with sugar, sirup, or honey.
conglutinate ::: a. --> Glued together; united, as by some adhesive substance. ::: v. t. --> To glue together; to unite by some glutinous or tenacious substance; to cause to adhere or to grow together.
conglutination ::: n. --> A gluing together; a joining by means of some tenacious substance; junction; union.
conhydrine ::: n. --> A vegetable alkaloid found with conine in the poison hemlock (Conium maculatum). It is a white crystalline substance, C8H17NO, easily convertible into conine.
coniferin ::: n. --> A glucoside extracted from the cambium layer of coniferous trees as a white crystalline substance.
*consciousforce. ::: Sri Aurobindo: "In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
consist ::: v. i. --> To stand firm; to be in a fixed or permanent state, as a body composed of parts in union or connection; to hold together; to be; to exist; to subsist; to be supported and maintained.
To be composed or made up; -- followed by of.
To have as its substance or character, or as its foundation; to be; -- followed by in.
To be consistent or harmonious; to be in accordance; -- formerly used absolutely, now followed by with.
consubstantial ::: a. --> Of the same kind or nature; having the same substance or essence; coessential.
consubstantiality ::: n. --> Participation of the same nature; coexistence in the same substance.
consubstantially ::: adv. --> In a consubstantial manner; with identity of substance or nature.
consubstantiate ::: v. t. --> To cause to unite, or to regard as united, in one common substance or nature. ::: v. i. --> To profess or belive the doctrine of consubstantion.
consubstantiation ::: n. --> An identity or union of substance.
The actual, substantial presence of the body of Christ with the bread and wine of the sacrament of the Lord&
containment ::: n. --> That which is contained; the extent; the substance.
continuous ::: uninterrupted in time, sequence, substance, or extent.
convallamarin ::: n. --> A white, crystalline, poisonous substance, regarded as a glucoside, extracted from the lily of the valley (Convallaria Majalis). Its taste is first bitter, then sweet.
convert ::: v. t. --> To cause to turn; to turn.
To change or turn from one state or condition to another; to alter in form, substance, or quality; to transform; to transmute; as, to convert water into ice.
To change or turn from one belief or course to another, as from one religion to another or from one party or sect to another.
To produce the spiritual change called conversion in (any one); to turn from a bad life to a good one; to change the heart
conylene ::: n. --> An oily substance, C8H14, obtained from several derivatives of conine.
copal ::: --> A resinous substance flowing spontaneously from trees of Zanzibar, Madagascar, and South America (Trachylobium Hornemannianum, T. verrucosum, and Hymenaea Courbaril), and dug from earth where forests have stood in Africa; -- used chiefly in making varnishes.
copperas ::: n. --> Green vitriol, or sulphate of iron; a green crystalline substance, of an astringent taste, used in making ink, in dyeing black, as a tonic in medicine, etc. It is made on a large scale by the oxidation of iron pyrites. Called also ferrous sulphate.
corallite ::: n. --> A mineral substance or petrifaction, in the form of coral.
One of the individual members of a compound coral; or that part formed by a single coral animal.
cornin ::: n. --> A bitter principle obtained from dogwood (Cornus florida), as a white crystalline substance; -- called also cornic acid.
An extract from dogwood used as a febrifuge.
corporal ::: n. --> A noncommissioned officer, next below a sergeant. In the United States army he is the lowest noncommissioned officer in a company of infantry. He places and relieves sentinels. ::: a. --> Belonging or relating to the body; bodily.
Having a body or substance; not spiritual; material. In
corporeal ::: a. --> Having a body; consisting of, or pertaining to, a material body or substance; material; -- opposed to spiritual or immaterial.
corpus ::: n. --> A body, living or dead; the corporeal substance of a thing.
corrigent ::: n. --> A substance added to a medicine to mollify or modify its action.
corrosive ::: a. --> Eating away; having the power of gradually wearing, changing, or destroying the texture or substance of a body; as, the corrosive action of an acid.
Having the quality of fretting or vexing. ::: n. --> That which has the quality of eating or wearing away
corroval ::: n. --> A dark brown substance of vegetable origin, allied to curare, and used by the natives of New Granada as an arrow poison.
cortex ::: n. --> Bark, as of a tree; hence, an outer covering.
Bark; rind; specifically, cinchona bark.
The outer or superficial part of an organ; as, the cortex or gray exterior substance of the brain.
cortical ::: a. --> Belonging to, or consisting of, bark or rind; resembling bark or rind; external; outer; superficial; as, the cortical substance of the kidney.
corundum ::: n. --> The earth alumina, as found native in a crystalline state, including sapphire, which is the fine blue variety; the oriental ruby, or red sapphire; the oriental amethyst, or purple sapphire; and adamantine spar, the hair-brown variety. It is the hardest substance found native, next to the diamond.
cosmoline ::: n. --> A substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as vaseline, but of somewhat stiffer consistency, and consisting of a mixture of the higher paraffines; a kind of petroleum jelly.
cotarnine ::: n. --> A white, crystalline substance, C12H13NO3, obtained as a product of the decomposition of narcotine. It has weak basic properties, and is usually regarded as an alkaloid.
cotton ::: n. --> A soft, downy substance, resembling fine wool, consisting of the unicellular twisted hairs which grow on the seeds of the cotton plant. Long-staple cotton has a fiber sometimes almost two inches long; short-staple, from two thirds of an inch to an inch and a half.
The cotton plant. See Cotten plant, below.
Cloth made of cotton. ::: v. i.
coumarin ::: n. --> The concrete essence of the tonka bean, the fruit of Dipterix (formerly Coumarouna) odorata and consisting essentially of coumarin proper, which is a white crystalline substance, C9H6O2, of vanilla-like odor, regarded as an anhydride of coumaric acid, and used in flavoring. Coumarin in also made artificially.
counterdraw ::: v. t. --> To copy, as a design or painting, by tracing with a pencil on oiled paper, or other transparent substance.
court-plaster ::: n. --> Sticking plaster made by coating taffeta or silk on one side with some adhesive substance, commonly a mixture of isinglass and glycerin.
cranny ::: n. --> A small, narrow opening, fissure, crevice, or chink, as in a wall, or other substance.
A tool for forming the necks of bottles, etc. ::: v. i. --> To crack into, or become full of, crannies.
To haunt, or enter by, crannies.
creak ::: v. i. --> To make a prolonged sharp grating or squeaking sound, as by the friction of hard substances; as, shoes creak. ::: v. t. --> To produce a creaking sound with. ::: n.
crease ::: n. --> See Creese.
A line or mark made by folding or doubling any pliable substance; hence, a similar mark, however produced.
One of the lines serving to define the limits of the bowler and the striker. ::: v. t.
creatin ::: n. --> A white, crystalline, nitrogenous substance found abundantly in muscle tissue.
cremor ::: n. --> Cream; a substance resembling cream; yeast; scum.
cresol ::: n. --> Any one of three metameric substances, CH3.C6H4.OH, homologous with and resembling phenol. They are obtained from coal tar and wood tar, and are colorless, oily liquids or solids. [Called also cresylic acid.]
crith ::: n. --> The unit for estimating the weight of a/riform substances; -- the weight of a liter of hydrogen at 0/ centigrade, and with a tension of 76 centimeters of mercury. It is 0.0896 of a gram, or 1.38274 grains.
crucible ::: n. --> A vessel or melting pot, composed of some very refractory substance, as clay, graphite, platinum, and used for melting and calcining substances which require a strong degree of heat, as metals, ores, etc.
A hollow place at the bottom of a furnace, to receive the melted metal.
A test of the most decisive kind; a severe trial; as, the crucible of affliction.
crusty ::: a. --> Having the nature of crust; pertaining to a hard covering; as, a crusty coat; a crusty surface or substance.
Having a hard exterior, or a short, rough manner, though kind at heart; snappish; peevish; surly.
cryohydrate ::: n. --> A substance, as salt, ammonium chloride, etc., which crystallizes with water of crystallization only at low temperatures, or below the freezing point of water.
cryptidine ::: n. --> One of the quinoline bases, obtained from coal tar as an oily liquid, C11H11N; also, any one of several substances metameric with, and resembling, cryptidine proper.
crystallization ::: n. --> The act or process by which a substance in solidifying assumes the form and structure of a crystal, or becomes crystallized.
The body formed by crystallizing; as, silver on precipitation forms arborescent crystallizations.
crystal ::: n. --> The regular form which a substance tends to assume in solidifying, through the inherent power of cohesive attraction. It is bounded by plane surfaces, symmetrically arranged, and each species of crystal has fixed axial ratios. See Crystallization.
The material of quartz, in crystallization transparent or nearly so, and either colorless or slightly tinged with gray, or the like; -- called also rock crystal. Ornamental vessels are made of it. Cf. Smoky quartz, Pebble; also Brazilian pebble, under Brazilian.
cultch ::: n. --> Empty oyster shells and other substances laid down on oyster grounds to furnish points for the attachment of the spawn of the oyster.
cuminil ::: n . --> A substance, analogous to benzil, obtained from oil of caraway.
curcumin ::: n. --> The coloring principle of turmeric, or curcuma root, extracted as an orange yellow crystalline substance, C14H14O4, with a green fluorescence.
curette ::: n. --> A scoop or ring with either a blunt or a cutting edge, for removing substances from the walls of a cavity, as from the eye, ear, or womb.
dab ::: n. --> A skillful hand; a dabster; an expert.
A name given to several species of flounders, esp. to the European species, Pleuronectes limanda. The American rough dab is Hippoglossoides platessoides.
A gentle blow with the hand or some soft substance; a sudden blow or hit; a peck.
A small mass of anything soft or moist.
dambonite ::: n. --> A white, crystalline, sugary substance obtained from an African caoutchouc.
daphnetin ::: n. --> A colorless crystalline substance, C9H6O4, extracted from daphnin.
daphnin ::: n. --> A dark green bitter resin extracted from the mezereon (Daphne mezereum) and regarded as the essential principle of the plant.
A white, crystalline, bitter substance, regarded as a glucoside, and extracted from Daphne mezereum and D. alpina.
davyum ::: n. --> A rare metallic element found in platinum ore. It is a white malleable substance. Symbol Da. Atomic weight 154.
deads ::: n. pl. --> The substances which inclose the ore on every side.
"Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life"s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.” The Life Divine
“Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.” The Life Divine
decarbonization ::: n. --> The action or process of depriving a substance of carbon.
decarbonizer ::: n. --> He who, or that which, decarbonizes a substance.
decolorant ::: n. --> A substance which removes color, or bleaches.
decomposition ::: n. --> The act or process of resolving the constituent parts of a compound body or substance into its elementary parts; separation into constituent part; analysis; the decay or dissolution consequent on the removal or alteration of some of the ingredients of a compound; disintegration; as, the decomposition of wood, rocks, etc.
The state of being reduced into original elements.
Repeated composition; a combination of compounds.
delight ::: “… the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d’être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
delirifacient ::: a. --> Producing, or tending to produce, delirium. ::: n. --> Any substance which tends to cause delirium.
delivery ::: n. --> The act of delivering from restraint; rescue; release; liberation; as, the delivery of a captive from his dungeon.
The act of delivering up or over; surrender; transfer of the body or substance of a thing; distribution; as, the delivery of a fort, of hostages, of a criminal, of goods, of letters.
The act or style of utterance; manner of speaking; as, a good delivery; a clear delivery.
The act of giving birth; parturition; the expulsion or
delphin ::: a. --> Alt. of Delphine ::: n. --> A fatty substance contained in the oil of the dolphin and the porpoise; -- called also phocenin.
demulcent ::: a. --> Softening; mollifying; soothing; assuasive; as, oil is demulcent. ::: n. --> A substance, usually of a mucilaginous or oily nature, supposed to be capable of soothing an inflamed nervous membrane, or protecting it from irritation. Gum Arabic, glycerin, olive oil, etc.,
densimeter ::: n. --> An instrument for ascertaining the specific gravity or density of a substance.
Divine. A feeling abo means a perception of something felt — a perception in the vital or psychic or in the essential substance of the consciousness.
DRINKING. ::: If excessive, it affects the substance and quality of the energy — but probably a moderate drinking and smoking would have a less perceptible effect.
drug ::: n. **1. A habit-forming medicinal or illicit substance, esp. a narcotic. adj. 2. Stupefied as if under the influence of a drug. drugged.**
element ::: 1. A component or constituent of a whole. 2. One of the substances, usually earth, water, air, and fire, formerly regarded as constituting the material universe. 3. A natural habitat, sphere of activity, environment, etc. elements.
empty ::: 1. Holding or containing nothing. 2. Having no occupants or inhabitants; vacant. 3. Destitute of some quality or qualities; devoid. 4. Without purpose, substance, or value. emptier.
essence ::: the basic, real, and invariable nature of a thing or its significant individual feature or features; its true substance.
"Everything is a ‘substance" — even peace, consciousness, Ananda, — only there are different orders of substance.” *Letters on Yoga
“Everything is a ‘substance’—even peace, consciousness, Ananda,—only there are different orders of substance.” Letters on Yoga
Experience and realisation ::: An experience of a truth in the substance of mind, in the vital or the phi’sical, wherever it may be, is the bepnning of realisation. Repetition of the experience leads to a fuller and more perm anent realbation. When it b
extract ::: anything drawn or taken out of a substance, as an essence, tincture, or concentrate.
ferment ::: 1. A state of agitation or of turbulent change or development. 2. A process of nature involving the addition of yeasts, moulds and certain bacteria (to liquids or solids) causing an effervescence or internal commotion, with evolution of heat, in the substance operated on, and a resulting alteration of its properties.
fibre ::: 1. A filamentous substance; a web of thread-like tissue such as composes living tissue generally. 2. That which fundamentally constitutes the strength of a thing; sinew; stuff; character. fibres, fibred.
fold (s) ::: v. 1. To envelope or clasp; enfold. 2. To bring (the wings) close to the body, as a bird on alighting. folding. *n. 3. The doubling of any flexible substance, as cloth; one part turned or bent and laid on another. Also fig. *4. A coil of a serpent, string, etc.
"For existence itself is and must always be the stuff of its own becoming; it must be shaped into the substance with which Force has to deal. Force again must be the power which works out that substance and works with it to whatever ends; Force is that which we ordinarily call Nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“For existence itself is and must always be the stuff of its own becoming; it must be shaped into the substance with which Force has to deal. Force again must be the power which works out that substance and works with it to whatever ends; Force is that which we ordinarily call Nature.” The Synthesis of Yoga
formula ::: 1. A prescribed form; a rule or model; any fixed or conventional method for doing something. 2. An established form of words or symbols for use in a ceremony or procedure. 3. Math. A general relationship, principle, or rule stated, often as an equation, in the form of symbols. 4. A representation of a substance using symbols for its constituent elements. formulas.
fuel ::: 1. A substance that can be consumed to produce energy. 2. Fig. Something that maintains or stimulates a passionate activity or an emotion. fuel"s.
gas ::: 1. A substance in the gaseous state. 2. Physics. A substance possessing perfect molecular mobility and the property of indefinite expansion, as opposed to a solid or liquid.
glow ::: n. 1. A light emitted by or as if by a substance heated to luminosity; incandescence. 2. Brilliance or warmth of colour. 3. Intensity of emotion; ardour. joy-glow, petal-glow. v. 4. To shine intensely, as if from great heat. 5. To show a strong bright colour. glows, glowed, glowing.
glue ::: n. 1. Any substance used as a strong adhesive for fastening or joining substances. v. 2. To stick or fasten with or as if with glue. glued, blood-glued.
gossamer ::: of or like gossamer (a fine filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs, spun by small spiders, which is seen floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn); thin and light.
heavy ::: 1. Having relatively great weight. lit. and fig. 2. Weighed down; burdened. 3. Marked by or exhibiting weariness. 4. Without vivacity or interest; ponderous; dull. 5. Not easily borne; oppressive; burdensome; harsh. 6. Hard to cope with; trying; difficult. 7. Weighed down with sorrow or grief; sorrowful, sad, grieved, despondent. 8. Deep, profound, intense. 9. Of great import or seriousness; grave. 10. Sober, serious, sombre or tragic. 11. With great force, intensity, turbulence, etc. 12. Having considerable thickness or substance. 13. Lacking vitality; deficient in vivacity or grace. 14. Emotionally weighed down; despondent. heavier.
“He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” The Synthesis of Yoga
HOLOCAUST OF THE DIVINE. ::: The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser tnple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nafure-b^y and Nature-force, and they exist because moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was fbere «i the possibilities of The Infinite she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow assimilate it ; avoid self-dispersion and all externalising of the consciousness.
holocaust ::: “The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother
". . . impersonality is in the original undifferentiated truth of things the pure substance of nature of the Being, the Person; in the dynamic truth of things it differentiates its powers and lends them to constitute by their variations the manifestation of personality.” The Life Divine ::: *personalities, World-personality.
“… impersonality is in the original undifferentiated truth of things the pure substance of nature of the Being, the Person; in the dynamic truth of things it differentiates its powers and lends them to constitute by their variations the manifestation of personality.” The Life Divine
“In actual fact Mind measures Time by event and Space by Matter; but it is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension,—no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
incense ::: 1. An aromatic substance, such as wood or a gum that is burned to produce a pleasant odour. 2. The smoke or odour produced by the burning of such a substance. 3. Fig. Offering; homage.
"In our errors is the substance of a truth which labours to reveal its meaning to our groping intelligence. The human intellect cuts out the error and the truth with it and replaces it by another half-truth half-error; but the Divine Wisdom suffers our mistakes to continue until we are able to arrive at the truth hidden and protected under every false cover.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“In our errors is the substance of a truth which labours to reveal its meaning to our groping intelligence. The human intellect cuts out the error and the truth with it and replaces it by another half-truth half-error; but the Divine Wisdom suffers our mistakes to continue until we are able to arrive at the truth hidden and protected under every false cover.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"In Supermind being, consciousness of knowledge and consciousness of will are not divided as they seem to be in our mental operations; they are a trinity, one movement with three effective aspects. Each has its own effect. Being gives the effect of substance, consciousness the effect of knowledge, of the self-guiding and shaping idea, of comprehension and apprehension; will gives the effect of self-fulfilling force. But the idea is only the light of the reality illumining itself; it is not mental thought nor imagination, but effective self-awareness. It is Real-Idea.” The Life Divine
“In Supermind being, consciousness of knowledge and consciousness of will are not divided as they seem to be in our mental operations; they are a trinity, one movement with three effective aspects. Each has its own effect. Being gives the effect of substance, consciousness the effect of knowledge, of the self-guiding and shaping idea, of comprehension and apprehension; will gives the effect of self-fulfilling force. But the idea is only the light of the reality illumining itself; it is not mental thought nor imagination, but effective self-awareness. It is Real-Idea.” The Life Divine
In the undying substance of my soul
intoxicated ::: 1. Affected by a substance that intoxicates. 2. Mentally or emotionally exhilarated.
intoxicating ::: affecting temporarily with diminished physical and mental control by means of alcoholic liquor, a drug, or another substance.
intuition ::: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process. intuition"s, intuitions, half-intuition.
Sri Aurobindo: "Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude.” *The Life Divine
"Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings"". When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” *The Life Divine
"I use the word ‘intuition" for want of a better. In truth, it is a makeshift and inadequate to the connotation demanded of it. The same has to be said of the word ‘consciousness" and many others which our poverty compels us to extend illegitimately in their significance.” *The Life Divine - Sri Aurobindo"s footnote.
"For intuition is an edge of light thrust out by the secret Supermind. . . .” The Life Divine
". . . intuition is born of a direct awareness while intellect is an indirect action of a knowledge which constructs itself with difficulty out of the unknown from signs and indications and gathered data.” The Life Divine
"Intuition is above illumined Mind which is simply higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration.” Letters on Yoga
"Intuition sees the truth of things by a direct inner contact, not like the ordinary mental intelligence by seeking and reaching out for indirect contacts through the senses etc. But the limitation of the Intuition as compared with the supermind is that it sees things by flashes, point by point, not as a whole. Also in coming into the mind it gets mixed with the mental movement and forms a kind of intuitive mind activity which is not the pure truth, but something in between the higher Truth and the mental seeking. It can lead the consciousness through a sort of transitional stage and that is practically its function.” Letters on Yoga
“Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind-substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of ``stable lightnings’’. When this original or native Intuition begins to descend into us in answer to an ascension of our consciousness to its level or as a result of our finding of a clear way of communication with it, it may continue to come as a play of lightning-flashes, isolated or in constant action; but at this stage the judgment of reason becomes quite inapplicable, it can only act as an observer or registrar understanding or recording the more luminous intimations, judgments and discriminations of the higher power. To complete or verify an isolated intuition or discriminate its nature, its application, its limitations, the receiving consciousness must rely on another completing intuition or be able to call down a massed intuition capable of putting all in place. For once the process of the change has begun, a complete transmutation of the stuff and activities of the mind into the substance, form and power of Intuition is imperative; until then, so long as the process of consciousness depends upon the lower intelligence serving or helping out or using the intuition, the result can only be a survival of the mixed Knowledge-Ignorance uplifted or relieved by a higher light and force acting in its parts of Knowledge.” The Life Divine
iron ::: n. 1. A silver-white metal, usually an admixture of some other substance, usually carbon, rendering it extremely hard and useful for tools, implements, machinery, constructions, and in many other applications. adj. 2. Inflexible; unyielding; firm. 3. Stern; harsh; cruel. 4. *Fig.* Resembling iron in firmness, strength, colour, etc.
Madhav: Substance here is not something opposed to or foreign to the self, but a kind of harp created by the self; resonant i.e. always answering to the promptings of the self.” The Book of the Divine Mother
Master ::: “The Master and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” The Life Divine
matrix ::: 1. Something that constitutes the place or point from which something else originates, takes form, or develops. 2. A substance, situation, or environment in which something has its origin, takes form, or is enclosed.
". . . matter is a formation of life that has no real existence apart from the informing universal spirit which gives it its energy and substance.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“… matter is a formation of life that has no real existence apart from the informing universal spirit which gives it its energy and substance.” The Synthesis of Yoga
". . . Matter is only substance-form of Force, . . . .” The Life Divine*
“… Matter is only substance-form of Force, …” The Life Divine
"Matter is the form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidananda [a trinity of Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Delight (ananda),] assumes when it subjects itself to this phenomenal action of its own consciousness and force.” The "Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit.” The Renaissance in India
“Matter is the form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidananda [a trinity of Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit), and Delight (ananda),] assumes when it subjects itself to this phenomenal action of its own consciousness and force.” The”Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit.” The Renaissance in India
::: ". . . matter means the involution of the conscious delight of existence in self-oblivious force and in a self-dividing, infinitesimally disaggregated form of substance.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“… matter means the involution of the conscious delight of existence in self-oblivious force and in a self-dividing, infinitesimally disaggregated form of substance.” The Synthesis of Yoga
"Matter, — substance itself, subtle or dense, mental or material, — is form and body of Spirit and would never have been created if it could not be made a basis for the self-expression of the Spirit.” The Life Divine
“Matter,—substance itself, subtle or dense, mental or material,—is form and body of Spirit and would never have been created if it could not be made a basis for the self-expression of the Spirit.” The Life Divine
medium ::: an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on. Also fig.
memory ::: “… memory is only a process of consciousness, a utility; it cannot be the substance of being or the whole of our personality: it is simply one of the workings of consciousness as radiation is one of the workings of Light.” The Life Divine
mirage ::: 1. An optical phenomenon that creates the illusion of water, often with inverted reflections of distant objects, and results from distortion of light by alternate layers of hot and cool air. 2. Something illusory, without substance or reality.
mortar ::: a vessel in which substances are crushed or ground with a pestle.
nourished ::: provided with food or other substances necessary for life and growth; fed. nourishing, nourishment.
odour ::: the property of a substance that gives it a characteristic scent or smell.
"Our explanation of the evolution in Matter is that the universe is a self-creative process of a supreme Reality whose presence makes spirit the substance of things, — all things are there as the spirit"s powers and means and forms of manifestation.” The Life Divine
“Our explanation of the evolution in Matter is that the universe is a self-creative process of a supreme Reality whose presence makes spirit the substance of things,—all things are there as the spirit’s powers and means and forms of manifestation.” The Life Divine
“Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,—but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,—as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge.” The Life Divine
plastic ::: n. 1. Any of numerous substances that can be shaped and molded when subjected to heat or pressure. adj. 2. Any of various organic compounds produced by polymerization, capable of being molded, extruded, cast into various shapes and films. 3. Capable of being shaped, moulded or formed. 4. Having the power of moulding or shaping formless or yielding material.
plunge ::: n. 1. A leap or dive as into water. Also fig. 2. An abrupt or precipitous descent as a cliff. v. 3. To thrust or throw forcefully into a substance, place or action. 4. To enter or move headlong through something. 5. To descend steeply; fall precipitously. plunges, plunged, plunging.
poetry ::: “All poetry is an inspiration, a thing breathed into the thinking organ from above; it is recorded in the mind, but is born in the higher principle of direct knowledge or ideal vision which surpasses mind. It is in reality a revelation. The prophetic or revealing power sees the substance; the inspiration perceives the right expression. Neither is manufactured; nor is poetry really a poiesis or composition, nor even a creation, but rather the revelation of something that eternally exists. The ancients knew this truth and used the same word for poet and prophet, creator and seer, sophos, vates, kavi.” Essays Human and Divine
poetry ::: Sri Aurobindo: "All poetry is an inspiration, a thing breathed into the thinking organ from above; it is recorded in the mind, but is born in the higher principle of direct knowledge or ideal vision which surpasses mind. It is in reality a revelation. The prophetic or revealing power sees the substance; the inspiration perceives the right expression. Neither is manufactured; nor is poetry really a poiesis or composition, nor even a creation, but rather the revelation of something that eternally exists. The ancients knew this truth and used the same word for poet and prophet, creator and seer, sophos, vates, kavi.” Essays Human and Divine
Power to work in him and do what the mind cannot do. If mind cannot by elTort become what is beyond mind, supermind can descend and transform mind into its own substance.
prophetic ::: “The prophetic or revealing power sees the substance; the inspiration perceives the right expression. Neither is manufactured; nor is poetry really a poiesis or composition, nor even a creation, but rather the revelation of something that eternally exists. The ancients knew this truth and used the same word for poet and prophet, creator and seer, sophos, vates, kavi.” Essays Divine and Human
Purity is more a condition than a substance. Peace helps to purity — since in peace disturbing influences cease and the essence of purity b to respond only to the Divine Influence and not to have affini^ with other movements.
purity ::: “It [purity] is more a condition than a substance. Peace helps to purity—since in peace disturbing influences cease and the essence of purity is to respond only to the Divine Influence and not to have an affinity with other movements.” Letters on Yoga
purity ::: Sri Aurobindo: "It [purity] is more a condition than a substance. Peace helps to purity — since in peace disturbing influences cease and the essence of purity is to respond only to the Divine Influence and not to have an affinity with other movements.” *Letters on Yoga
realised ::: made real or concrete; gave reality, substance or existence to.
realm ::: “Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and obey its dictates. Here on earth there is the evolution with matter as the starting-point, life as the medium, mind emerging from it. There are many grades, realms, combinations in the cosmos—there are even many universes. Ours is only one of many.” Letters on Yoga
RETAS. ::: Physical substance.
SANJNANA. ::: Contact of consciousness with its objects; inbringing apprehensive consdousness which contacts objects so as to possess them in conscious substance.
sap ::: the watery fluid that circulates through a plant, carrying food and other substances to the various tissues.. 2. Energy; vitality, life-force.
secretion ::: 1. A functionally specialized substance (especially one that is not waste) released from a gland or cell. 2. The product of this act or process, such as saliva, mucus, tears, bile, or a hormone that is secreted. secretion"s.
semblance ::: 1. An appearance or likeness; a resemblance to something or someone similar. 2. An outward token or appearance, esp. without any inner substance or reality. semblances, half-semblances.
shard ::: a broken piece or fragment of a brittle substance, esp. of pottery. shards.
shell ::: 1. An exterior or enclosing cover or case; an external part. Also fig. 2. Something without substance; hollow. Also fig. 3. The outer covering of crustaceans, molluscs, and other invertebrates, often with reference to the formation of pearls within the shells of molluscs. conch-shells.* See under *conch.
slight ::: adj. 1. Small in size, degree, or amount.2. Unimportant, trifling, trivial. 3. Lacking strength, substance, or solidity; frail. 4. Frail, flimsy, delicate. slightest. v. 5. To treat as of little importance; to disregard, disdain, ignore.
solid ::: 1. Characterized by solidity or compactness. 2. Having no opening or window; unbroken, blank. 3. Firm or compact in substance. 4. Reliable or sensible; upstanding.
Space ::: “It is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension,—no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
Space. Sri Aurobindo: "It is possible in pure mentality to disregard the movement of event and the disposition of substance and realise the pure movement of Conscious-Force which constitutes Space and Time; these two are then merely two aspects of the universal force of Consciousness which in their intertwined interaction comprehend the warp and woof of its action upon itself. And to a consciousness higher than Mind which should regard our past, present and future in one view, containing and not contained in them, not situated at a particular moment of Time for its point of prospection, Time might well offer itself as an eternal present. And to the same consciousness not situated at any particular point of Space, but containing all points and regions in itself, Space also might well offer itself as a subjective and indivisible extension, — no less subjective than Time.” The Life Divine
spilled ::: caused or allowed a substance such as liquids to run or fall out of a container. spills.
spread ::: 1. To extend or cause to extend over a larger expanse of space or time. Also fig. 2. To become stretched out or extended; expand, as in growth. 3. To be distributed or dispersed (a substance or a number of things) over a certain or area; to be scattered. 4. To spread out or open from a closed or folded state, like sails. 5. To distribute and expand widely. spreads, far-spread.
Sri Aurobindo: "Substance, then, as we know it, material substance, is the form in which Mind acting through sense contacts the Conscious Being of which it is itself a movement of knowledge.” *The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "For from the divine Bliss, the original Delight of existence, the Lord of Immortality comes pouring the wine of that Bliss, the mystic Soma, into these jars of mentalised living matter; eternal and beautiful, he enters into these sheaths of substance for the integral transformation of the being and nature.” The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: ". . . memory is only a process of consciousness, a utility; it cannot be the substance of being or the whole of our personality: it is simply one of the workings of consciousness as radiation is one of the workings of Light.” The Life Divine
*Sri Aurobindo: "Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and obey its dictates. Here on earth there is the evolution with matter as the starting-point, life as the medium, mind emerging from it. There are many grades, realms, combinations in the cosmos — there are even many universes. Ours is only one of many.” Letters on Yoga
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . the divine Ananda, the principle of Bliss [is that] from which, in the Vedic conception, the existence of Man, this mental being, is drawn. A secret Delight is the base of existence, its sustaining atmosphere and almost its substance. This Ananda is spoken of in the Taittiriya Upanishad as the ethereal atmosphere of bliss without which nothing could remain in being. In the Aitareya Upanishad Soma, as the lunar deity, is born from the sense-mind in the universal Purusha and, when man is produced, expresses himself again as sense-mentality in the human being. For delight is the raison d"être of sensation, or, we may say, sensation is an attempt to translate the secret delight of existence into the terms of physical consciousness.” The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: "The Master and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.” *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother
Sri Aurobindo: "The prophetic or revealing power sees the substance; the inspiration perceives the right expression. Neither is manufactured; nor is poetry really a poiesis or composition, nor even a creation, but rather the revelation of something that eternally exists. The ancients knew this truth and used the same word for poet and prophet, creator and seer, sophos, vates, kavi.” Essays Divine and Human
Sri Aurobindo: "The Unseen with whom there can be no pragmatic relations, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, undesignable by name, whose substance is the certitude of One Self, in whom world-existence is stilled, who is all peace and bliss — that is the Self, that is what must be known.” Mandukya Upanishad. The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "This material universe is itself only existence as we see it when the soul dwells on the plane of material movement and experience in which the spirit involves itself in form, and therefore all the framework of things in which it moves by the life and which it embraces by the consciousness is determined by the principle of infinite division and aggregation proper to Matter, to substance of form.” The Upanishads
stark ::: 1. Bare; blunt; unyielding. 2. Stiff or rigid in substance, muscles, etc. 3. Complete or utter; extreme. 4. Harsh, grim, or desolate, as a view, place, etc. 5. Bluntly or sternly plain; not softened or glamourized. 6. Extremely simple or severe; austere, bare. 7. Stiff or rigid in substance, muscles, etc. 8. Bluntly or sternly plain; inflexible, esp. in judgement.
stuff ::: 1. The material out of which something is made or formed; substance. 2. The essential substance or elements of something; its essence. Also fig. earth-stuff, soul-stuff, world-stuff.
substance ::: 1. Essential nature; essence. 2. That of which a thing consists; physical matter or material. 3. That which is solid and practical in character, quality, or importance, as contrasted with an appearance or something unsubstantial.
substance ::: “Substance, then, as we know it, material substance, is the form in which Mind acting through sense contacts the Conscious Being of which it is itself a movement of knowledge.” The Life Divine
substance ::: There substance was a resonant harp of self,
SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA. ::: There are different planes of substance, gross, subtle and more subtle going back to what is called causal (kdrana) substance. ^Vhat is more gross can be reduced to the subtle state and the subtle brought info the gross state ; that accounts for dematerialisation and rematerialisation.
"The Absolute neither creates nor is created, — in the current sense of making or being made; we can speak of creation only in the sense of the Being becoming in form and movement what it already is in substance and status.” *The Life Divine
“The Absolute neither creates nor is created,—in the current sense of making or being made; we can speak of creation only in the sense of the Being becoming in form and movement what it already is in substance and status.” The Life Divine
The change that is effected by the transition from mind to supermind is not only a revolution in knowledge or in our power for knowledge. If it is to be complete and stable, it must be a divine transmutation of our will too, our entotions, our sensa- tions, all our power of life and its forces, in the end even of the very substance and functioning of our body. Then only can it be said that the supermind is there ujwn earth, roofed in its very earth-substance and embodied in a new race of divinised crea- tures.
The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost illimitable decree. It must be remem- bered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only , taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or Jifc-cncrgy acting directly on mate- rial energy aird substance ; if they do they can make a material object do things or rather can do things with a material object which wiould be to that object in its ordinary poise 'or ‘law* unhabitual and therefore apparently impossible.
The Divine reveals himself in the world around us when we look upon that with a spiritual desire of delight that seeks him in all things. There is often a sudden opening by which the veil of forms is itself turned Into a revelation. A universal spiri- tual Presence, a universal peace, a universal infinite Delight has manifested, immanent, embracing, aU-penetraling. This Presence by our love of It, our delight in it, our constant thought of It returns and grows upon us ; it becomes the thing that we see and all else is only its habitation, form and symbol. Even all that is most outward, the body, the form, the sound, "whatever our senses seize, are seen as this Presence ; they cease to be physical and are changed into a substance of spirit. This trans- formation means a transformation of our own inner conscious- ness ; we are taken by the surrounding Presence into itself and
"The form of that which is in Time is or appears to be evanescent, but the self, the substance, the being that takes shape in that form is eternal and is one self, one substance, one being with all that is, all that was, all that shall be. But even the form is in itself eternal and not temporal, but it exists for ever in possibility, in power, in consciousness in the Eternal.” Essays Divine and Human
“The form of that which is in Time is or appears to be evanescent, but the self, the substance, the being that takes shape in that form is eternal and is one self, one substance, one being with all that is, all that was, all that shall be. But even the form is in itself eternal and not temporal, but it exists for ever in possibility, in power, in consciousness in the Eternal.” Essays Divine and Human
"The greatest motion of poetry comes when the mind is still and the ideal principle works above and outside the brain, above even the hundred petalled lotus of the ideal mind, in its proper empire; for then it is Veda that is revealed, the perfect substance and expression of eternal truth.” Essays Divine and Human*
“The greatest motion of poetry comes when the mind is still and the ideal principle works above and outside the brain, above even the hundred petalled lotus of the ideal mind, in its proper empire; for then it is Veda that is revealed, the perfect substance and expression of eternal truth.” Essays Divine and Human
"The ideation of the gnosis is radiating light-stuff of the consciousness of the eternal Existence; each ray is a truth. The will in the gnosis is a conscious force of eternal knowledge; it throws the consciousness and substance of being into infallible forms of truth-power, forms that embody the idea and make it faultlessly effective, and it works out each truth-power and each truth-form spontaneously and rightly according to its nature. Because it carries this creative force of the divine Idea, the Sun, the lord and symbol of the gnosis, is described in the Veda as the Light which is the father of all things, Surya Savitri, the Wisdom-Luminous who is the bringer-out into manifest existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga*
“The ideation of the gnosis is radiating light-stuff of the consciousness of the eternal Existence; each ray is a truth. The will in the gnosis is a conscious force of eternal knowledge; it throws the consciousness and substance of being into infallible forms of truth-power, forms that embody the idea and make it faultlessly effective, and it works out each truth-power and each truth-form spontaneously and rightly according to its nature. Because it carries this creative force of the divine Idea, the Sun, the lord and symbol of the gnosis, is described in the Veda as the Light which is the father of all things, Surya Savitri, the Wisdom-Luminous who is the bringer-out into manifest existence.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“The Ishwari Shakti, divine Conscious-Force and World-Mother, becomes a mediatrix between the eternal One and the manifested Many. On one side, by the play of the energies which she brings from the One, she manifests the multiple Divine in the universe, involving and evolving its endless appearances out of her revealing substance; on the other, by the reascending current of the same energies she leads back all towards That from which they have issued so that the soul in its evolutionary manifestation may more and more return towards the Divinity there or here put on its divine character.” The Synthesis of Yoga
them and has to aci upon them as an Influence rather than by its sovereign right of direct action ; its direct action becomes normal and preponderant only at a high stage of development or by yoga. A perception of inith which is inherent in the deepest substance of the consciousness, a sense of the good, true, beautiful, the Divine, is its privilege.
The Mother: "The universe is a finite whole, but its content is infinite; the changes which occur in this infinity result from the action of Essence on substance, from the penetration, the permeation of quantity by quality, which brings about a constant and progressive organisation and reorganisation of the content of the universe.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.*
The Mother: “The universe is a finite whole, but its content is infinite; the changes which occur in this infinity result from the action of Essence on substance, from the penetration, the permeation of quantity by quality, which brings about a constant and progressive organisation and reorganisation of the content of the universe.” Words of the Mother, MCW Vol. 15.
". . . there are a series of subtler and subtler formulations of substance which escape from and go beyond the formula of the material universe. Without going deeply into matters which are too occult and difficult for our present inquiry, we may say, adhering to the system on which we have based ourselves, that these gradations of substance, in one important aspect of their formulation in series, can be seen to correspond to the ascending series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and that other higher divine triplicity of Sachchidananda. In other words, we find that substance in its ascension bases itself upon each of these principles and makes itself successively a characteristic vehicle for the dominating cosmic self-expression of each in their ascending series.” The Life Divine
“… there are a series of subtler and subtler formulations of substance which escape from and go beyond the formula of the material universe. Without going deeply into matters which are too occult and difficult for our present inquiry, we may say, adhering to the system on which we have based ourselves, that these gradations of substance, in one important aspect of their formulation in series, can be seen to correspond to the ascending series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and that other higher divine triplicity of Sachchidananda. In other words, we find that substance in its ascension bases itself upon each of these principles and makes itself successively a characteristic vehicle for the dominating cosmic self-expression of each in their ascending series.” The Life Divine
The solid cool block of peace pressing on the body and making it immobile is the descent of the higher consciousness, A deep, intense or massive substance of peace and sfiilncss is very com- monly the first of its powers that descends and many experience it in that way. At first it comes and stays only during medita- tion or, without the sense of physical iDertne.ss or immobility, a little while longer and afterwards it is lost ; but if the sadbana follows its normal course, it comes more and more, lasting longer and in the cod as an enduring deep peace and inner stillness and release becomes a normal character of the consciousness, the foundation indeed of a new consciousness, calm and liberated.
"The view I am presenting goes farther in idealism; it sees the creative Idea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power of Conscious Force expressive of real being, born out of real being and partaking of its nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of fictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable forms of its own imperishable and immutable substance. The world is therefore not a figment of conception in the universal Mind, but a conscious birth of that which is beyond Mind into forms of itself.” The Life Divine
“The view I am presenting goes farther in idealism; it sees the creative Idea as Real-Idea, that is to say, a power of Conscious Force expressive of real being, born out of real being and partaking of its nature and neither a child of the Void nor a weaver of fictions. It is conscious Reality throwing itself into mutable forms of its own imperishable and immutable substance. The world is therefore not a figment of conception in the universal Mind, but a conscious birth of that which is beyond Mind into forms of itself.” The Life Divine
"The whole nature of man is to become more than himself. He was the man-animal, he has become more than the animal man. He is the thinker, the craftsman, the seeker after beauty. He shall be more than the thinker, he shall be the seer of knowledge; he shall be more than the craftsman, he shall be the creator and master of his creation; he shall be more than the seeker of beauty, for he shall enjoy all beauty and all delight. Physical he seeks for this immortal substance; vital he seeks after immortal life and the infinite power of his being; mental and partial in knowledge, he seeks after the whole light and the utter vision.
“The whole nature of man is to become more than himself. He was the man-animal, he has become more than the animal man. He is the thinker, the craftsman, the seeker after beauty. He shall be more than the thinker, he shall be the seer of knowledge; he shall be more than the craftsman, he shall be the creator and master of his creation; he shall be more than the seeker of beauty, for he shall enjoy all beauty and all delight. Physical he seeks for this immortal substance; vital he seeks after immortal life and the infinite power of his being; mental and partial in knowledge, he seeks after the whole light and the utter vision.
thin ::: 1. Having relatively little extent from one surface or side to the opposite; not thick. 2. Lean or slender in form, build, or stature. 3. Lacking radiance or intensity. 4. Not dense or concentrated; sparse. 5. Lacking substance or significance. 6. Scant; not abundant or plentiful. 7. (of sound) lacking resonance or volume. 8. Rarefied, as air.
“This material universe is itself only existence as we see it when the soul dwells on the plane of material movement and experience in which the spirit involves itself in form, and therefore all the framework of things in which it moves by the life and which it embraces by the consciousness is determined by the principle of infinite division and aggregation proper to Matter, to substance of form.” The Upanishads
thought-Mind ::: Sri Aurobindo: "Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the Spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind, — but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin, — as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. An all-awareness emerging from the original identity, carrying the truths the identity held in itself, conceiving swiftly, victoriously, multitudinously, formulating and by self-power of the Idea effectually realising its conceptions, is the character of this greater mind of knowledge. " *The Life Divine
tinsel ::: 1. A glittering metallic substance, as copper or brass, in thin sheets, used in pieces, strips, threads, etc. to produce a sparkling effect cheaply. 2. Something sparkling or showy but basically valueless.
transmutation ::: an act that changes the form or character or substance of something.
transmuted ::: changed from one form, nature, substance, or state into another; transformed.
transmute ::: to change from one nature, substance, form, or condition into another; transform; convert. transmutes, transmuted, transmuting, transmutingly.
Truth’s shadow and not its body. Mind does not Jive in Truth or only seeks after it and grasps at best some threads from its robe ; the Supermiod lives in Truth and its native substance, form and expression ; it has not to seek after It, but possesses it always automatically and is what it possesses. This is very heart of the difference.
unseen ::: “The Unseen with whom there can be no pragmatic relations, unseizable, featureless, unthinkable, undesignable by name, whose substance is the certitude of One Self, in whom world-existence is stilled, who is all peace and bliss—that is the Self, that is what must be known.” Mandukya Upanishad. The Life Divine
"Vishnu is the Eternal"s Personality of Consciousness; in him all is supported, in his wideness, in his stability, in his substance.” Essays Human and Divine*
“Vishnu is the Eternal’s Personality of Consciousness; in him all is supported, in his wideness, in his stability, in his substance.” Essays Human and Divine
Vishnu is the Eternal"s Personality of Consciousness; in him all is supported, in his wideness, in his stability, in his substance.
Vishnu is the Eternal’s Personality of Consciousness; in him all is supported, in his wideness, in his stability, in his substance.
VISNU. ::: The Elcmal’s PcisonalUy of Consciousness *, in him all is supported, in his wideness, in his stability, in his substance.
VJSNU. ::: The Eternal's Personality of Consciousness ; in him all is supported, in his wideness, in his stability, in his substance.
waste ::: 1. Useless consumption or expenditure; use without adequate return; an act or instance of wasting. 2. An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product. 3. An empty, desolate, or dreary tract or area; empty space or untenanted regions. wastes.
weight ::: 1. A measure of the heaviness of an object. Also fig. **2. A body of determinate mass, as of metal, for using on a balance or scale in weighing objects, substances, etc. 3. Any heavy load or burden. Also fig. 4. Influence, importance, or authority. 5. Consequence, or effective influence. weights. v. weighted. 6.** Added weight to, gave greater meaning or importance to.
"When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions — false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience — which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine ::: *life"s, life-born, life-curve, life-delight"s, life-drift, life-foam, life-giving, life-impulse, life-impulse"s, life-motives, life-nature"s, life-pain, life-plan, life-power, life-room, life-scene, life-self, life-thought, life-wants, all-life, sense-life.
“When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositions—false to inner truth though valid in surface practical experience—which, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.” The Life Divine
Work and silence ::: A sort of stepping backward into some- thing silent and observant within which is not involved in the action, yet sees and can shed Its light upon it. There are then two parts of the being, one inner looking at and witnessing and knowing, the other executive and Instrumeotai and doing. This gives not only freedom but power — and in this inner being one can get into touch with the Divine not through mental activity but through tbe substance of tbe being, by a certah inward touch, perception, reception, receiving abo the right inspiration or intuition of the work.
world-Mother ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The Ishwari Shakti, divine Conscious-Force and World-Mother, becomes a mediatrix between the eternal One and the manifested Many. On one side, by the play of the energies which she brings from the One, she manifests the multiple Divine in the universe, involving and evolving its endless appearances out of her revealing substance; on the other, by the reascending current of the same energies she leads back all towards That from which they have issued so that the soul in its evolutionary manifestation may more and more return towards the Divinity there or here put on its divine character.” The Synthesis of Yoga
KEYS (10k)
37 Sri Aurobindo
8 Saint Thomas Aquinas
5 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Manly P Hall
2 Kapila
2 Giordano Bruno
2 Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king
2 Apollonius of Tyana
2 ?
1 William Blake
1 Wikipedia
1 Tneng Tseu
1 The Rose of Bakamate
1 The Mother
1 Tao Te Ching
1 Swami Vivekananda
1 Suzanne Segal
1 Sri Aurobindo?
1 Schopenhauer
1 Robert Adams
1 Proverbs
1 Peter J Carroll
1 Nolini Kanta Gupta
1 Marcus Aurelius
1 Mahabharata
1 Lalita Vistara
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jorge Luis Borge
1 id
1 heaven
1 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1 Gary Gygax
1 Franz Kafka
1 Euripides
1 Epictetus
1 Aquinas ST I q110 a1
1 Antoine the Healer : Revelations
1 The Mother
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Saint Augustine of Hippo
1 Jorge Luis Borges
1 Ibn Arabi
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
21 William Shakespeare
20 Sri Aurobindo
20 Marcus Aurelius
15 Anonymous
13 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
10 Stephen King
10 Charles Dickens
8 Victor Hugo
8 Nathaniel Hawthorne
8 Giordano Bruno
8 Frederick Lenz
8 Aristotle
7 Maimonides
6 Thich Nhat Hanh
6 Richard Rohr
6 Mahatma Gandhi
5 Tom Robbins
5 Thomas Merton
5 Thomas Jefferson
5 Laozi
1:My fear is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
~ Franz Kafka,#KEYS
2:Temples cannot imprison within their walls the divine Substance. ~ Euripides, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
3:A substance is a thing to which it belongs to be not in a subject ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (SCG 1.25)., #KEYS
4:Thus even though it is not durable, there is no interruption in substance. ~ Lalita Vistara, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
5:This world is a republic all whose citizens are made of one and the same substance. ~ Epictetus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
6:Unity is sweet substance of the heart
And not a chain that binds. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act I,#KEYS
7:All souls are merely determinations of the universal Soul. Bodies taken separately are only varied and transient forms of material substance. ~ Kapila, #KEYS
8:Nothing can exist which is not substance and power of Brahman. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Philosophy of Rebirth, #KEYS
9:There is not a body, however small, which does not enclose a portion of the divine substance. ~ Giordano Bruno, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
10:An analysis of the ego convinces us that its ultimate substance is God. When egotism vanishes, divinity manifests itself. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
11:Can You now say with certainty whether this supramental substance will help decisively to realise this new birth?
EVIDENTLY.
~ The Mother,#KEYS
12:To represent constantly the world as one single being with one single soul and one single substance. ~ Marcus Aurelius, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
13:The realms of the gods and demons ~ heaven, purgatory, hell ~ are of the substance of dreams. Myth, in this view, is the dream of the world. ~ Joseph Campbell, Myths of Light, #KEYS
14:The human intellect is not able to reach a comprehension of the divine substance through its natural power ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 1.3)., #KEYS
15:What the poet sees and feels, not what he opines, is the real substance of his poetry. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Poets of the Dawn - II, #KEYS
16:The substance from which we derive our conception of the absolute is the identical substance from which we conceive of the finite. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
17:Matter is the last word of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ascending Series of Substance, #KEYS
18:In this state of pure felicity the soul is enlarged and the material substance that is subject to her profiteth also. ~ Tneng Tseu, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
19:He is the king of Nature because he alone in the world knows himself...His substance is that of God Himself. ~ The Rose of Bakamate, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
20:The shadow has to disappear and by its disappearance reveal the spirit's unclouded substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #KEYS
21:As the essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence of Spirit is Freedom
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History,#KEYS
22:Drinking if excessive affects the substance and quality of the energy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga, #KEYS
23:What is of the substance of the utterly Real must itself be real. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #KEYS
24:God is in all things through His own essence because His substance is present to all things as the cause of their being ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.8.3)., #KEYS
25:The powers of the soul may be said to be a medium between substance and accident, as being natural properties of the soul ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.77.1ad5), #KEYS
26:The higher mind is a thing in itself above the intellect. It is only when something of its power comes down and is modified in the lower mind substance that it acts as part of the intellect.
~ ?,#KEYS
27:The powers of the soul may be said to be a medium between substance and accident, as being natural properties of the soul ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.77.1ad5)., #KEYS
28:When thou canst see that the substance of His being is thy being,... then thou knowest thy soul...So to know oneself is the true knowledge. ~ id, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
29:All souls are merely determinations of the universal Soul. Bodies taken separately are only varied and transient forms of material substance. ~ Kapila, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
30:Do not to others what would displease thee done to thyself: this is the substance of the Law; all other law depends on one's good pleasure. ~ Mahabharata, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
31:When asked "Who I Am', the only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and everything - just as you are." ~ Suzanne Segal, #KEYS
32:Happiness and suffering are the inevitable characteristics of the body. The one thing needful is jnāna and bhakti. God alone is Substance; all else is illusory. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
33:There substance was a resonant harp of self,
A net for the constant lightnings of the spirit, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The House of the Spirit and the New Creation,#KEYS
34:Since the knowledge of God is His substance, just as His substance is altogether immutable, so His knowledge likewise must be altogether invariable ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ST 1.14.15)., #KEYS
35:Since this intelligence is Divine being, it isn't perfected by an added perfection. It is perfect thru itself. So the Divine substance is truth itself ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 1.60)., #KEYS
36:If the philosopher makes his thought substance of poetry, he ceases to be a philosophic thinker and becomes a poet-seer of Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Poetic Vision and the Mantra, #KEYS
37:Thought-mind
Where Knowledge is the leader of the act
And Matter is of thinking substance made, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind,#KEYS
38:Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ Jorge Luis Borge, #KEYS
39:Christianity says, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." And I say . "Recognise thyself in thy neighbour and that all men are in reality one and the same substance." ~ Schopenhauer, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
40:Matter is a formation of life that has no real existence apart from the informing universal spirit which gives it its energy and substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Psychology of Self-Perfection, #KEYS
41:Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love, #KEYS
42:So long as we are attached to the form, we shall be unable to appreciate the substance, we shall have no notion of the causes the knowledge of which is the true knowing. ~ Antoine the Healer : Revelations, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
43:God alone is the Substance, and all else is illusory. One should worship God with one's whole mind. All else is illusory. This moment the body is and the next moment it is not. One must make haste to worship God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
44:There Mind, a splendid sun of vision's rays,
Shaped substance by the glory of its thoughts
And moved amidst the grandeur of its dreams. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The House of the Spirit and the New Creation,#KEYS
45:Under the appearances of bread, there is the body of Christ into which the substance of the bread is converted, as is clear from the words of the consecration when one says: "This is My body" ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, (ScG 4.64)., #KEYS
46:The being of the universe is one and equally present in each individual, part or member of the universe, in such sort that the totality and each part make from the view-point of substance only one. ~ Giordano Bruno, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
47:Things are not supposed to be any way. Things just are. They have no substance, they have no reality. As you respond to conditions you are simply wasting your energy, when you can be using that energy to uncover your self, to discover your own reality. ~ Robert Adams, #KEYS
48:As one age falls, another rises, different to mortal sight, but to immortals only the same; for we see the same characters repeated again & again, in animals, vegetables, minerals, and in men; nothing new occurs. Substance can never suffer change nor decay.
~ William Blake,#KEYS
49:There is no such thing as absolute void or real nullity and what we call by that name is simply something beyond the grasp of our sense, our mind or our most subtle consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ascending Series of Substance, #KEYS
50:There was something formlessly fashioned,
That existed before heaven and earth;
Without sound, without substance,
Dependent on nothing, unchanging,
All-pervading, unfailing.
One may think of it as the mother of all
things under heaven. ~ Tao Te Ching, XXV,#KEYS
51:When the sage has recognised impermanence, subjection to grief and unreality of substance as the three characteristic qualities of this world, how can his heart own attachment to the things of this world? ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
52:It drew from sight and sound spiritual power,
Made sense a road to reach the intangible:
It thrilled with the supernal influences
That build the substance of life's deeper soul. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Paradise of the Life-Gods#KEYS
53:The illusionist sub-class sprang from my reading. So many spellworkers in fable and fiction used only the illusory, not "real magic" that had actual substance and effect, that I thought it would be fun to include such an option in the game. ~ Gary Gygax, ENWorld, Q&A with Gary Gygax part 1, 2002, #KEYS
54:That which differentiates one thing from another is time, space, and causation.
The differentiation is in the form, not in the substance.
You may destroy the form and it disappears for ever; but the substance remains the same. You can never destroy the substance. ~ Swami Vivekananda,#KEYS
55:In created and changeable things, what is not said according to substance, must, by necessary alternative, be said according to accident. . . . But in God nothing is said to be according to accident, because in him nothing is changeable. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #KEYS
56:Oneness unknown to us dwells in these millions of figures and faces,
Wars with itself in our battles, loves in our clinging embraces,
Inly the self and the substance of things and their cause and their mover ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#KEYS
57:Yet how can such contraries pass into each other? By what alchemy shall this lead of mortality be turned into that gold of divine Being? But if they are not in their essence contraries? If they are manifestations of one Reality, identical in substance? Then indeed a divine transmutation becomes conceivable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
58:... In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. ...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Sacrifice and the Lord of the Sacrifice [112] [T1],#KEYS
59:By the understanding of the impermanence, of subjection to grief and of the unreality of substance of all formations arises the light of the true wisdom and without it there can be no veritable illumination. The gate of the Way is found in this understanding. Whoever strives not to come to it, is torn into pieces by death. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
60:When a thought is expressed in speech, the vibration of the sound has a considerable power to bring the most material substance into contact with the thought, thus giving it a concrete and effective reality. That is why one must never speak ill of people or things or say things which go against the progress of the divine realisation in the world. This is an absolute general rule. August 1953. ~ The Mother #KEYS
61:The material movements are an exterior notation by which the soul represents its perceptions of certain truths of the Infinite and makes them effective in the terms of Substance. These things are a language, a notation, a hieroglyphic, a system of symbols, not themselves the deepest truest sense of the things they intimate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #KEYS
62:Brahman: the Reality; the Eternal; the Absolute; the Spirit; the Supreme Being; the One besides whom there is nothing else existent; in relation to the universe [cf. atman] the Supreme is brahman, the one Reality which is not only the spiritual, material and conscious substance of all the ideas and forces and forms of the universe, but their origin, support and possessor, the cosmic and supracosmic Spirit. God.
~ Sri Aurobindo?,#KEYS
63:None dies except in appearance. In fact what is called birth is the passage from essence to substance, and what is called death is on the contrary the passage from substance to essence. Nothing is born and nothing dies in reality, but all first appears and then becomes invisible. The first effect is produced by the density of matter, the second by the subtlety of essence which remains always the same but is sometimes in movement, sometimes in repose. ~ Apollonius of Tyana, #KEYS
64:None dies except in appearance. In fact what is called birth is the passage from essence to substance, and what is called death is on the contrary the passage from substance to essence. Nothing is born and nothing dies in reality, but all first appears and then becomes invisible. The first effect is produced by the density of matter, the second by the subtlety of essence which remains always the same but is sometimes in movement, sometimes in repose. ~ Apollonius of Tyana, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
65:And yet, and yet... Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny ... is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.~ Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths, Selected Stories and Other Writings, #KEYS
66:And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
67:But if human mind can become capable of the glories of the divine Light, human emotion and sensibility can be transformed into the mould and assume the measure and movement of the supreme Bliss, human action not only represent but feel itself to be the motion of a divine and non-egoistic Force and the physical substance of our being suffiently partake of the purity of the supernal essence, suffiently unify plasticity and durable constancy to support and prolong these highest experiences and agencies, then all the long labour of Nature will end in a crowning justification and her evolutions reveal their profound significance.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
68:abolishing the ego :::
In the path of Knowledge one attempts this abolition, negatively by a denial of the reality of the ego, positively by a constant fixing of the thought upon the idea of the One and the Infinite in itself or the One and Infinite everywhere. This, if persistently done, changes in the end the mental outlook on oneself and the whole world and there is a kind of mental realisation; but afterwards by degrees or perhaps rapidly and imperatively and almost at the beginning the mental realisation deepens into spiritual experience - a realisation in the very substance of our being.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, 363,#KEYS
69:Similarly, the existence of Allah has multiplicity and the many Names. It is this or that according to what appears from it of the universe which demands the realities of the Divine Names by its development. They are doubled by it and stand in opposition to the unity of multiplicity. It is one by source in respect to its essence, as the primal substance (hayûla) is a single source in respect to its essence, while it has many forms which it supports by its essence. It is the same with Allah through the forms of tajalli which are manifested from Him. So the locii of the tajalli are the forms of the universe, in spite of the intelligible unity (ahadiyya). Look at the excellence of this divine instruction which Allah gives by granting its recognition to whoever He wishes among His slaves. ~ Ibn Arabi, #KEYS
70:I mean by the Higher Mind a first plane of spiritual [consciousness] where one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees things habitually with that awareness; but it is still very much on the mind level although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation is through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight-not illumined by any of the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight. It acts as an intermediate state between the Truth-Light above and the human mind; communicating the higher knowledge in a form that the Mind intensified, broadened, made spiritually supple, can receive without being blinded or dazzled by a Truth beyond it.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, [9:342],#KEYS
71:Our first decisive step out of our human intelligence, our normal mentality, is an ascent into a higher Mind, a mind no longer of mingled light and obscurity or half-light, but a large clarity of the spirit. Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind,-but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin,-as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness are dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of spirit-born conceptual knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
72:11. The Ultimate Boon:The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration, and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
73:In the Mysteries the seven Logi, or Creative Lords, are shown as streams of force issuing from the mouth of the Eternal One. This signifies the spectrum being extracted from the white light of the Supreme Deity. The seven Creators, or Fabricators, of the inferior spheres were called by the Jews the Elohim. By the Egyptians they were referred to as the Builders (sometimes as the Governors) and are depicted with great knives in their hands with which they carved the universe from its primordial substance. Worship of the planets is based upon their acceptation as the cosmic embodiments of the seven creative attributes of God. The Lords of the planets were described as dwelling within the body of the sun, for the true nature of the sun, being analogous to the white light, contains the seeds of all the tone and color potencies which it manifests. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, #KEYS
74:I, Wisdom, dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions.... Counsel is mine and sound knowledge. I am understanding. I am strength. By me Kings reign and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me. And those that seek me shall find me. Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver. I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.... I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning before ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills were, I was brought forth. ~ Proverbs, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
75:A MARWARI DEVOTEE: "Sir, what is the way?"
Two ways of God-realization
MASTER: "There are two ways. One is the path of discrimination, the other is that of love. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal.
God alone is the real and permanent Substance; all else is illusory and impermanent.
The magician alone is real; his magic is illusory. This is discrimination.
"Discrimination and renunciation. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal. Renunciation means to have dispassion for the things of the world. One cannot acquire them all of a sudden. They must be practised every day.
One should renounce 'woman and gold' mentally at first. Then, by the will of God, one can renounce it both mentally and outwardly. It is impossible to ask the people of Calcutta to renounce all for the sake of God. One has to tell them to renounce mentally. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,#KEYS
76:THE MASTER and Mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the Eternal and Infinite. He is the transcendent unknown or unknowable Absolute, the unexpressed and unmanifested Ineffable above us; but he is also the Self of all beings, the Master of all worlds, transcending all worlds, the Light and the Guide, the All-Beautiful and All-Blissful, the Beloved and the Lover. He is the Cosmic Spirit and all-creating Energy around us; he is the Immanent within us. All that is is he, and he is the More than all that is, and we ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force, conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of the Light and Bliss that are for ever. No matter whether by knowledge, works, love or any other means, to become aware of this truth of our being, to realise it, to make it effective here or elsewhere is the object of all Yoga.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, [T1],#KEYS
77:the three results of effective practice: devotion, the central liberating knowledge and purification of ego; :::
...it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible;.. There is bound up a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our through, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved conscecration to the Divine of the totality of our being....
...next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, ... In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. ...
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Sacrifice, The Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [T1],#KEYS
78:Supermind and the human mind are a number of ranges, planes or layers of consciousness - one can regard it in various ways - in which the element or substance of mind and consequently its movements also become more and more illumined and powerful and wide. The Overmind is the highest of these ranges; it is full of lights and powers; but from the point of view of what is above it, it is the line of the soul's turning away from the complete and indivisible knowledge and its descent towards the Ignorance. For although it draws from the Truth, it is here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above. There is no longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge for ever harmonious because for ever one, which is the character of Supermind. In the Supermind mental divisions and oppositions cease, the problems created by our dividing and fragmenting mind disappear and Truth is seen as a luminous whole. In the Overmind there is not yet the actual fall into Ignorance, but the first step is taken which will make the fall inevitable. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Yoga - I, #KEYS
79:This ego or "I" is not a lasting truth, much less our essential part; it is only a formation of Nature, a mental form of thought centralisation in the perceiving and discriminating mind, a vital form of the centralisation of feeling and sensation in our parts of life, a form of physical conscious reception centralising substance and function of substance in our bodies. All that we internally are is not ego, but consciousness, soul or spirit. All that we externally and superficiallyare and do is not ego but Nature. An executive cosmic force shapes us and dictates through our temperament and environment and mentality so shaped, through our individualised formulation of the cosmic energies, our actions and their results. Truly, we do not think, will or act but thought occurs in us, will occurs in us, impulse and act occur in us; our ego-sense gathers around itself, refers to itself all this flow of natural activities. It is cosmic Force, it is Nature that forms the thought, imposes the will, imparts the impulse. our body, mind and ego are a wave of that sea of force in action and do not govern it, but by it are governed and directed. The Sadhaka in his progress towards truth and self-knowledge must come to a point where the soul opens its eyes of vision and recognises this truth of ego and this truth of works. He gives up the idea of a mental, vital, physical, "I" that acts or governs action; he recognises that Prakriti, Force of cosmic nature following her fixed modes, is the one and only worker in him and in all things and creatures.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Supreme Will, 214,#KEYS
80:In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it is called 'the resurrection body ' and 'the glorified body.' The prophet Isaiah said, 'The dead shall live, their bodies shall rise' (Isa. 26:19). St. Paul called it 'the celestial body' or 'spiritual body ' (soma pneumatikon) (I Corinthians 15:40). In Sufism it is called 'the most sacred body ' (wujud al-aqdas) and 'supracelestial body ' (jism asli haqiqi). In Taoism, it is called 'the diamond body,' and those who have attained it are called 'the immortals' and 'the cloudwalkers.' In Tibetan Buddhism it is called 'the light body.' In Tantrism and some schools of yoga, it is called 'the vajra body,' 'the adamantine body,' and 'the divine body.' In Kriya yoga it is called 'the body of bliss.' In Vedanta it is called 'the superconductive body.' In Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is called 'the radiant body.' In the alchemical tradition, the Emerald Tablet calls it 'the Glory of the Whole Universe' and 'the golden body.' The alchemist Paracelsus called it 'the astral body.' In the Hermetic Corpus, it is called 'the immortal body ' (soma athanaton). In some mystery schools, it is called 'the solar body.' In Rosicrucianism, it is called 'the diamond body of the temple of God.' In ancient Egypt it was called 'the luminous body or being' (akh). In Old Persia it was called 'the indwelling divine potential' (fravashi or fravarti). In the Mithraic liturgy it was called 'the perfect body ' (soma teilion). In the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is called 'the divine body,' composed of supramental substance. In the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, it is called 'the ultrahuman'.
~ ?, http://herebedragons.weebly.com/homo-lumen.html,#KEYS
81:But in the integral conception the Conscious Soul is the Lord, the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. Purusha is of the nature of Sat, the being of conscious self-existence pure and infinite; Shakti or Prakriti is of the nature of Chit, - it is power of the Purusha's self-conscious existence, pure and infinite. The relation of the two exists between the poles of rest and action. When the Energy is absorbed in the bliss of conscious self-existence, there is rest; when thePurusha pours itself out in the action of its Energy, there is action, creation and the enjoyment or Ananda of becoming. But if Ananda is the creator and begetter of all becoming, its method is Tapas or force of the Purusha's consciousness dwelling upon its own infinite potentiality in existence and producing from it truths of conception or real Ideas, vijnana, which, proceedingfrom an omniscient and omnipotent Self-existence, have the surety of their own fulfilment and contain in themselves the nature and law of their own becoming in the terms of mind, life and matter. The eventual omnipotence of Tapas and the infallible fulfilment of the Idea are the very foundation of all Yoga. In man we render these terms by Will and Faith, - a will that is eventually self-effective because it is of the substance of Knowledge and a faith that is the reflex in the lower consciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the manifestation. It is this self-certainty of the Idea which is meant by the Gita when it says, yo yac-chraddhah sa eva sah, 'whatever is a man's faith or the sure Idea in him, that he becomes.'
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Synthesis of the Systems, 43,#KEYS
82:IN OUR scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit's own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing but Spirit itself modified in apparent substance and in dynamism of action, not modified in real essence. All are powers of one Power of being and not other than that All-Existence, All-Consciousness, All-Will, All-Delight which is the true truth behind every appearance. And they are not only one in their reality, but also inseparable in the sevenfold variety of their action. They are the seven colours of the light of the divine consciousness, the seven rays of the Infinite, and by them the Spirit has filled in on the canvas of his self-existence conceptually extended, woven of the objective warp of Space and the subjective woof of Time, the myriad wonders of his self-creation great, simple, symmetrical in its primal laws and vast framings, infinitely curious and intricate in its variety of forms and actions and the complexities of relation and mutual effect of all upon each and each upon all. These are the seven Words of the ancient sages; by them have been created and in the light of their meaning are worked out and have to be interpreted the developed and developing harmonies of the world we know and the worlds behind of which we have only an indirect knowledge. The Light, the Sound is one; their action is sevenfold.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, 7 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, 499,#KEYS
83:Man's refusal of the Divine Grace has been depicted very beautifully and graphically in a perfect dramatic form by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. The refusal comes one by one from the three constituent parts of the human being. First of all man is a material being, a bodily creature, as such he is a being of ignorance and misery, of brutish blindness . He does not know that there is something other than his present state of misfortune and dark fate. He is not even aware that there may be anything higher or nobler than the ugliness he is steeped in. He lives on earth-life with an earth-consciousness, moves mechanically and helplessly through vicissitudes over which he has no control. Even so the material life is not a mere despicable thing; behind its darkness, behind its sadness, behind all its infirmities, the Divine Mother is there upholding it and infusing into it her grace and beauty. Indeed, she is one with this world of sorrows, she has in effect become it in her infinite pity and love so that this material body of hers may become conscious of its divine substance and manifest her true form. But the human being individualised and separated in egoistic consciousness has lost the sense of its inner reality and is vocal only in regard to its outward formulation. It is natural for physical man therefore to reject and deny the physical Godhead in him, he even curses it and wants to continue as he is.
He yells therefore in ignorance and anguish:
I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
Who is nailed on the wide cross of the Universe . . .
I toil like the animal, like the animal die.
I am man the rebel, man the helpless serf...
I know my fate will ever be the same.
It is my Nature' s work that cannot change . . .
I was made for evil, evil is my lot;
Evil I must be and by evil live;
Nought other can I do but be myself;
What Nature made, that I must remain.2' ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, On Savitri, 13,#KEYS
84:Disciple : What part does breathing exercise - Pranayama - play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It sets the Pranic - vital - currents free and removes dullness of the brain so that the higher consciousness can come down. Pranayama does not bring dullness in the brain. My own experience, on the contrary, is that brain becomes illumined. When I was practising Pranayama at Baroda, I used to do it for about five hours in the day, - three hours in the morning and two in the evening. I found that the mind began to work with great illumination and power. I used to write poetry in those days. Before the Pranayama practice, usually I wrote five to eight lines per day; and about two hundred lines in a month. After the practice I could write 200 lines within half an hour. That was not the only result. Formerly my memory was dull. But after this practice I found that when the inspiration came I could remember all the lines in their order and write them down correctly at any time. Along with these enhanced functionings I could see an electrical activity all round the brain, and I could feel that it was made up of a subtle substance. I could feel everything as the working of that substance. That was far from your carbon-dioxide!
Disciple : How is it that Pranayama develops mental capacities? What part does it play in bringing about the higher consciousness?
Sri Aurobindo : It is the Pranic - vital - currents which sustain mental activity. When these currents are changed by Pranayama, they bring about a change in the brain. The cause of dullness of the brain is some obstruction in it which does not allow the higher thought to be communicated to it. When this obstruction is removed the higher mental being is able to communicate its action easily to the brain. When the higher consciousness is attained the brain does not become dull. My experience is that it becomes illumined.
~ Sri Aurobindo, A B Purani, Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, 19-9-1926,#KEYS
85:34
D: What are the eight limbs of knowledge (jnana ashtanga)?
M: The eight limbs are those which have been already mentioned, viz., yama, niyama etc., but differently defined:
(1) Yama: This is controlling the aggregate of sense-organs, realizing the defects that are present in the world consisting of the body, etc.
(2) Niyama: This is maintaining a stream of mental modes that relate to the Self and rejecting the contrary modes. In other words, it means love that arises uninterruptedly for the Supreme Self.
(3) Asana: That with the help of which constant meditation on Brahman is made possible with ease is asana.
(4) Pranayama: Rechaka (exhalation) is removing the two unreal aspects of name and form from the objects constituting the world, the body etc., puraka (inhalation) is grasping the three real aspects, existence, consciousness and bliss, which are constant in those objects, and kumbhaka is retaining those aspects thus grasped.
(5) Pratyahara: This is preventing name and form which have been removed from re-entering the mind.
(6) Dharana: This is making the mind stay in the Heart, without straying outward, and realizing that one is the Self itself which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.
(7) Dhyana: This is meditation of the form 'I am only pure consciousness'. That is, after leaving aside the body which consists of five sheaths, one enquires 'Who am I?', and as a result of that, one stays as 'I' which shines as the Self.
(8) Samadhi: When the 'I-manifestation' also ceases, there is (subtle) direct experience. This is samadhi.
For pranayama, etc., detailed here, the disciplines such as asana, etc., mentioned in connection with yoga are not necessary.
The limbs of knowledge may be practised at all places and at all times. Of yoga and knowledge, one may follow whichever is pleasing to one, or both, according to circumstances. The great teachers say that forgetfulness is the root of all evil, and is death for those who seek release,10 so one should rest the mind in one's Self and should never forget the Self: this is the aim. If the mind is controlled, all else can be controlled. The distinction between yoga with eight limbs and knowledge with eight limbs has been set forth elaborately in the sacred texts; so only the substance of this teaching has been given here. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-Enquiry, 34,#KEYS
86:The poet-seer sees differently, thinks in another way, voices himself in quite another manner than the philosopher or the prophet. The prophet announces the Truth as the Word, the Law or the command of the Eternal, he is the giver of the message; the poet shows us Truth in its power of beauty, in its symbol or image, or reveals it to us in the workings of Nature or in the workings of life, and when he has done that, his whole work is done; he need not be its explicit spokesman or its official messenger. The philosopher's business is to discriminate Truth and put its parts and aspects into intellectual relation with each other; the poet's is to seize and embody aspects of Truth in their living relations, or rather - for that is too philosophical a language - to see her features and, excited by the vision, create in the beauty of her image.
No doubt, the prophet may have in him a poet who breaks out often into speech and surrounds with the vivid atmosphere of life the directness of his message; he may follow up his injunction "Take no thought for the morrow," by a revealing image of the beauty of the truth he enounces, in the life of Nature, in the figure of the lily, or link it to human life by apologue and parable. The philosopher may bring in the aid of colour and image to give some relief and hue to his dry light of reason and water his arid path of abstractions with some healing dew of poetry. But these are ornaments and not the substance of his work; and if the philosopher makes his thought substance of poetry, he ceases to be a philosophic thinker and becomes a poet-seer of Truth. Thus the more rigid metaphysicians are perhaps right in denying to Nietzsche the name of philosopher; for Nietzsche does not think, but always sees, turbidly or clearly, rightly or distortedly, but with the eye of the seer rather than with the brain of the thinker. On the other hand we may get great poetry which is full of a prophetic enthusiasm of utterance or is largely or even wholly philosophic in its matter; but this prophetic poetry gives us no direct message, only a mass of sublime inspirations of thought and image, and this philosophic poetry is poetry and lives as poetry only in so far as it departs from the method, the expression, the way of seeing proper to the philosophic mind. It must be vision pouring itself into thought-images and not thought trying to observe truth and distinguish its province and bounds and fences.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry,#KEYS
87:Vijnana, true ideation, called ritam, truth or vedas, knowledge in the Vedas, acts in human mind by four separate functions; revelation, termed drishti, sight; inspiration termed sruti,hearing; and the two faculties of discernment, smriti, memory,which are intuition, termed ketu, and discrimination, termed daksha, division, or viveka, separation. By drishti we see ourselves the truth face to face, in its own form, nature or self-existence; by sruti we hear the name, sound or word by which the truth is expressed & immediately suggested to the knowledge; by ketu we distinguish a truth presented to us behind a veil whether of result or process, as Newton discovered the law of gravitation hidden behind the fall of the apple; by viveka we distinguish between various truths and are able to put them in their right place, order and relation to each other, or, if presented with mingled truth & error, separate the truth from the falsehood. Agni Jatavedas is termed in the Veda vivichi, he who has the viveka, who separates truth from falsehood; but this is only a special action of the fourth ideal faculty & in its wider scope, it is daksha, that which divides & rightly distributes truth in its multiform aspects. The ensemble of the four faculties is Vedas or divine knowledge. When man is rising out of the limited & error-besieged mental principle, the faculty most useful to him, most indispensable is daksha or viveka. Drishti of Vijnana transmuted into terms of mind has become observation, sruti appears as imagination, intuition as intelligent perception, viveka as reasoning & intellectual judgment and all of these are liable to the constant touch of error. Human buddhi, intellect, is a distorted shadow of the true ideative faculties. As we return from these shadows to their ideal substance viveka or daksha must be our constant companion; for viveka alone can get rid of the habit of mental error, prevent observation being replaced by false illumination, imagination by false inspiration, intelligence by false intuition, judgment & reason by false discernment. The first sign of human advance out of the anritam of mind to the ritam of the ideal faculty is the growing action of a luminous right discernment which fixes instantly on the truth, feels instantly the presence of error. The fullness, the manhana of this viveka is the foundation & safeguard of Ritam or Vedas. The first great movement of Agni Jatavedas is to transform by the divine will in mental activity his lower smoke-covered activity into the bright clearness & fullness of the ideal discernment. Agne adbhuta kratw a dakshasya manhana.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Hymns To The Mystic Fire, 717,#KEYS
88:It is thus by an integralisation of our divided being that the Divine Shakti in the Yoga will proceed to its object; for liberation, perfection, mastery are dependent on this integralisation, since the little wave on the surface cannot control its own movement, much less have any true control over the vast life around it. The Shakti, the power of the Infinite and the Eternal descends within us, works, breaks up our present psychological formations, shatters every wall, widens, liberates, presents us with always newer and greater powers of vision, ideation, perception and newer and greater life-motives, enlarges and newmodels increasingly the soul and its instruments, confronts us with every imperfection in order to convict and destroy it, opens to a greater perfection, does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages so that new births and new vistas open constantly within us. Expansive in her action, she frees the consciousness from confinement in the body; it can go out in trance or sleep or even waking and enter into worlds or other regions of this world and act there or carry back its experience. It spreads out, feeling the body only as a small part of itself, and begins to contain what before contained it; it achieves the cosmic consciousness and extends itself to be commensurate with the universe. It begins to know inwardly and directly and not merely by external observation and contact the forces at play in the world, feels their movement, distinguishes their functioning and can operate immediately upon them as the scientist operates upon physical forces, accept their action and results in our mind, life, body or reject them or modify, change, reshape, create immense new powers and movements in place of the old small functionings of the nature. We begin to perceive the working of the forces of universal Mind and to know how our thoughts are created by that working, separate from within the truth and falsehood of our perceptions, enlarge their field, extend and illumine their significance, become master of our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the conscious and no longer the more than half-inconscient incarnation and self-expression of the Spirit. All this and more becomes more and more possible as the working of the Divine Shakti increases in us and, against much resistance or labour to respond of our obscure consciousness, through much struggle and movement of progress and regression and renewed progress necessitated by the work of intensive transformation of a half-inconscient into a conscious substance, moves to a greater purity, truth, height, range. All depends on the psychic awakening in us, the completeness of our response to her and our growing surrender. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 183, #KEYS
89:We have now completed our view of the path of Knowledge and seen to what it leads. First, the end of Yoga of Knowledge is God-possession, it is to possess God and be possessed by him through consciousness, through identification, through reflection of the divine Reality. But not merely in some abstraction away from our present existence, but here also; therefore to possess the Divine in himself, the Divine in the world, the Divine within, the Divine in all things and all beings. It is to possess oneness with God and through that to possess also oneness with the universal, with the cosmos and all existences; therefore to possess the infinite diversity also in the oneness, but on the basis of oneness and not on the basis of division. It is to possess God in his personality and his impersonality; in his purity free from qualities and in his infinite qualities; in time and beyond time; in his action and in his silence; in the finite and in the infinite. It is to possess him not only in pure self, but in all self; not only in self, but in Nature; not only in spirit, but in supermind, mind, life and body; to possess him with the spirit, with the mind, with the vital and the physical consciousness; and it is again for all these to be possessed by him, so that our whole being is one with him, full of him, governed and driven by him. It is, since God is oneness, for our physical consciousness to be one with the soul and the nature of the material universe; for our life, to be one with all life; for our mind, to be one with the universal mind; for our spirit, to be identified with the universal spirit. It is to merge in him in the absolute and find him in all relations. Secondly, it is to put on the divine being and the divine nature. And since God is Sachchidananda, it is to raise our being into the divine being, our consciousness into the divine consciousness, our energy into the divine energy, our delight of existence into the divine delight of being. And it is not only to lift ourselves into this higher consciousness, but to widen into it in all our being, because it is to be found on all the planes of our existence and in all our members, so that our mental, vital, physical existence shall become full of the divine nature. Our intelligent mentality is to become a play of the divine knowledge-will, our mental soul-life a play of the divine love and delight, our vitality a play of the divine life, our physical being a mould of the divine substance. This God-action in us is to be realised by an opening of ourselves to the divine gnosis and divine Ananda and, in its fullness, by an ascent into and a permanent dwelling in the gnosis and the Ananda. For though we live physically on the material plane and in normal outwardgoing life the mind and soul are preoccupied with material existence, this externality of our being is not a binding limitation. We can raise our internal consciousness from plane to plane of the relations of Purusha with prakriti, and even become, instead of the mental being dominated by the physical soul and nature, the gnostic being or the bliss-self and assume the gnostic or the bliss nature. And by this raising of the inner life we can transform our whole outward-going existence; instead of a life dominated by matter we shall then have a life dominated by spirit with all its circumstances moulded and determined by the purity of being, the consciousness infinite even in the finite, the divine energy, the divine joy and bliss of the spirit.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Integral Knowledge, The Higher and the Lower Knowledge [511] [T1],#KEYS
90:This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the consciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle, a fiery ardour of realisation and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light very usually envelops this action; for it must be noted that, contrary to our ordinary conceptions, light is not primarily a material creation and the sense or vision of light accompanying the inner illumination is not merely a subjective visual image or a symbolic phenomenon: light is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality illuminative and creative; material light is a subsequent representation or conversion of it into Matter for the purposes of the material Energy. There is also in this descent the arrival of a greater dynamic, a golden drive, a luminous enthousiasmos of inner force and power which replaces the comparatively slow and deliberate process of the Higher Mind by a swift, sometimes a vehement, almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation.
But these two stages of the ascent enjoy their authority and can get their own united completeness only by a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher summits where dwells the intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind's transmutation. Intuition is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness in the object, penetrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; or, again, when the consciousness meets the Supreme Reality or the spiritual reality of things and beings and has a contactual union with it, then the spark, the flash or the blaze of intimate truth-perception is lit in its depths. This close perception is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natural consequence. A concealed or slumbering identity, not yet recovering itself, still remembers or conveys by the intuition its own contents and the intimacy of its self-feeling and self-vision of things, its light of truth, its overwhelming and automatic certitude. ... Intuition is always an edge or ray or outleap of a superior light; it is in us a projecting blade, edge or point of a far-off supermind light entering into and modified by some intermediate truth-mind substance above us and, so modified, again entering into and very much blinded by our ordinary or ignorant mind substance; but on that higher level to which it is native its light is unmixed and therefore entirely and purely veridical, and its rays are not separated but connected or massed together in a play of waves of what might almost be called in the Sanskrit poetic figure a sea or mass of stable lightnings.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#KEYS
91:Although a devout student of the Bible, Paracelsus instinctively adopted the broad patterns of essential learning, as these had been clarified by Pythagoras of Samos and Plato of Athens. Being by nature a mystic as well as a scientist, he also revealed a deep regard for the Neoplatonic philosophy as expounded by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Neoplatonism is therefore an invaluable aid to the interpretation of the Paracelsian doctrine.
Paracelsus held that true knowledge is attained in two ways, or rather that the pursuit of knowledge is advanced by a two-fold method, the elements of which are completely interdependent. In our present terminology, we can say that these two parts of method are intuition and experience. To Paracelsus, these could never be divided from each other.
The purpose of intuition is to reveal certain basic ideas which must then be tested and proven by experience. Experience, in turn, not only justifies intuition, but contributes certain additional knowledge by which the impulse to further growth is strengthened and developed. Paracelsus regarded the separation of intuition and experience to be a disaster, leading inevitably to greater error and further disaster. Intuition without experience allows the mind to fall into an abyss of speculation without adequate censorship by practical means. Experience without intuition could never be fruitful because fruitfulness comes not merely from the doing of things, but from the overtones which stimulate creative thought. Further, experience is meaningless unless there is within man the power capable of evaluating happenings and occurrences. The absence of this evaluating factor allows the individual to pass through many kinds of experiences, either misinterpreting them or not inter preting them at all. So Paracelsus attempted to explain intuition and how man is able to apprehend that which is not obvious or apparent. Is it possible to prove beyond doubt that the human being is capable of an inward realization of truths or facts without the assistance of the so-called rational faculty?
According to Paracelsus, intuition was possible because of the existence in nature of a mysterious substance or essence-a universal life force. He gave this many names, but for our purposes, the simplest term will be appropriate. He compared it to light, further reasoning that there are two kinds of light: a visible radiance, which he called brightness, and an invisible radiance, which he called darkness. There is no essential difference between light and darkness. There is a dark light, which appears luminous to the soul but cannot be sensed by the body. There is a visible radiance which seems bright to the senses, but may appear dark to the soul. We must recognize that Paracelsus considered light as pertaining to the nature of being, the total existence from which all separate existences arise. Light not only contains the energy needed to support visible creatures, and the whole broad expanse of creation, but the invisible part of light supports the secret powers and functions of man, particularly intuition. Intuition, therefore, relates to the capacity of the individual to become attuned to the hidden side of life. By light, then, Paracelsus implies much more than the radiance that comes from the sun, a lantern, or a candle. To him, light is the perfect symbol, emblem, or figure of total well-being. Light is the cause of health. Invisible light, no less real if unseen, is the cause of wisdom. As the light of the body gives strength and energy, sustaining growth and development, so the light of the soul bestows understanding, the light of the mind makes wisdom possible, and the light of the spirit confers truth. Therefore, truth, wisdom, understanding, and health are all manifesta tions or revelations ot one virtue or power. What health is to the body, morality is to the emotions, virtue to the soul, wisdom to the mind, and reality to the spirit. This total content of living values is contained in every ray of visible light. This ray is only a manifestation upon one level or plane of the total mystery of life. Therefore, when we look at a thing, we either see its objective, physical form, or we apprehend its inner light Everything that lives, lives in light; everything that has an existence, radiates light. All things derive their life from light, and this light, in its root, is life itself. This, indeed, is the light that lighteth every man who cometh into the world. ~ Manly P Hall, Paracelsus,#KEYS
92:What are these operations? They are not mere psychological self-analysis and self-observation. Such analysis, such observation are, like the process of right thought, of immense value and practically indispensable. They may even, if rightly pursued, lead to a right thought of considerable power and effectivity. Like intellectual discrimination by the process of meditative thought they will have an effect of purification; they will lead to self-knowledge of a certain kind and to the setting right of the disorders of the soul and the heart and even of the disorders of the understanding. Self-knowledge of all kinds is on the straight path to the knowledge of the real Self. The Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self-observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.We can look into the inward of ourselves more easily than we can look into the inward of things external to us because there, in things outside us, we are in the first place embarrassed by the form and secondly we have no natural previous experience of that in them which is other than their physical substance. A purified or tranquillised mind may reflect or a powerful concentration may discover God in the world, the Self in Nature even before it is realised in ourselves, but this is rare and difficult. (2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the process of the Self in its becoming and follow the process by which it draws back into self-being. Therefore the ancient counsel, know thyself, will always stand as the first word that directs us towards the knowledge. Still, psychological self-knowledge is only the experience of the modes of the Self, it is not the realisation of the Self in its pure being.
The status of knowledge, then, which Yoga envisages is not merely an intellectual conception or clear discrimination of the truth, nor is it an enlightened psychological experience of the modes of our being. It is a "realisation", in the full sense of the word; it is the making real to ourselves and in ourselves of the Self, the transcendent and universal Divine, and it is the subsequent impossibility of viewing the modes of being except in the light of that Self and in their true aspect as its flux of becoming under the psychical and physical conditions of our world-existence. This realisation consists of three successive movements, internal vision, complete internal experience and identity.
This internal vision, dr.s.t.i, the power so highly valued by the ancient sages, the power which made a man a Rishi or Kavi and no longer a mere thinker, is a sort of light in the soul by which things unseen become as evident and real to it-to the soul and not merely to the intellect-as do things seen to the physical eye. In the physical world there are always two forms of knowledge, the direct and the indirect, pratyaks.a, of that which is present to the eyes, and paroks.a, of that which is remote from and beyond our vision. When the object is beyond our vision, we are necessarily obliged to arrive at an idea of it by inference, imagination, analogy, by hearing the descriptions of others who have seen it or by studying pictorial or other representations of it if these are available. By putting together all these aids we can indeed arrive at a more or less adequate idea or suggestive image of the object, but we do not realise the thing itself; it is not yet to us the grasped reality, but only our conceptual representation of a reality. But once we have seen it with the eyes,-for no other sense is adequate,-we possess, we realise; it is there secure in our satisfied being, part of ourselves in knowledge. Precisely the same rule holds good of psychical things and of he Self. We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration;3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman, and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity.
(2) And it is only in ourselves that we can observe and know the 2 In one respect, however, it is easier, because in external things we are not so much hampered by the sense of the limited ego as in ourselves; one obstacle to the realisation of God is therefore removed.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Status of Knowledge,#KEYS
93:This, in short, is the demand made on us, that we should turn our whole life into a conscious sacrifice. Every moment and every movement of our being is to be resolved into a continuous and a devoted self-giving to the Eternal. All our actions, not less the smallest and most ordinary and trifling than the greatest and most uncommon and noble, must be performed as consecrated acts. Our individualised nature must live in the single consciousness of an inner and outer movement dedicated to Something that is beyond us and greater than our ego. No matter what the gift or to whom it is presented by us, there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being in all beings. Our commonest or most grossly material actions must assume this sublimated character; when we eat, we should be conscious that we are giving our food to that Presence in us; it must be a sacred offering in a temple and the sense of a mere physical need or self-gratification must pass away from us. In any great labour, in any high discipline, in any difficult or noble enterprise, whether undertaken for ourselves, for others or for the race, it will no longer be possible to stop short at the idea of the race, of ourselves or of others. The thing we are doing must be consciously offered as a sacrifice of works, not to these, but either through them or directly to the One Godhead; the Divine Inhabitant who was hidden by these figures must be no longer hidden but ever present to our soul, our mind, our sense. The workings and results of our acts must be put in the hands of that One in the feeling that that Presence is the Infinite and Most High by whom alone our labour and our aspiration are possible. For in his being all takes place; for him all labour and aspiration are taken from us by Nature and offered on his altar. Even in those things in which Nature is herself very plainly the worker and we only the witnesses of her working and its containers and supporters, there should be the same constant memory and insistent consciousness of a work and of its divine Master. Our very inspiration and respiration, our very heart-beats can and must be made conscious in us as the living rhythm of the universal sacrifice.
It is clear that a conception of this kind and its effective practice must carry in them three results that are of a central importance for our spiritual ideal. It is evident, to begin with, that, even if such a discipline is begun without devotion, it leads straight and inevitably towards the highest devotion possible; for it must deepen naturally into the completest adoration imaginable, the most profound God-love. There is bound up with it a growing sense of the Divine in all things, a deepening communion with the Divine in all our thought, will and action and at every moment of our lives, a more and more moved consecration to the Divine of the totality of our being. Now these implications of the Yoga of works are also of the very essence of an integral and absolute Bhakti. The seeker who puts them into living practice makes in himself continually a constant, active and effective representation of the very spirit of self-devotion, and it is inevitable that out of it there should emerge the most engrossing worship of the Highest to whom is given this service. An absorbing love for the Divine Presence to whom he feels an always more intimate closeness, grows upon the consecrated worker. And with it is born or in it is contained a universal love too for all these beings, living forms and creatures that are habitations of the Divine - not the brief restless grasping emotions of division, but the settled selfless love that is the deeper vibration of oneness. In all the seeker begins to meet the one Object of his adoration and service. The way of works turns by this road of sacrifice to meet the path of Devotion; it can be itself a devotion as complete, as absorbing, as integral as any the desire of the heart can ask for or the passion of the mind can imagine.
Next, the practice of this Yoga demands a constant inward remembrance of the one central liberating knowledge, and a constant active externalising of it in works comes in too to intensify the remembrance. In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. A memory, a self-dynamising meditation of this kind, must and does in its end turn into a profound and uninterrupted vision and a vivid and all-embracing consciousness of that which we so powerfully remember or on which we so constantly meditate. For it compels a constant reference at each moment to the Origin of all being and will and action and there is at once an embracing and exceeding of all particular forms and appearances in That which is their cause and upholder. This way cannot go to its end without a seeing vivid and vital, as concrete in its way as physical sight, of the works of the universal Spirit everywhere. On its summits it rises into a constant living and thinking and willing and acting in the presence of the Supramental, the Transcendent. Whatever we see and hear, whatever we touch and sense, all of which we are conscious, has to be known and felt by us as That which we worship and serve; all has to be turned into an image of the Divinity, perceived as a dwelling-place of his Godhead, enveloped with the eternal Omnipresence. In its close, if not long before it, this way of works turns by communion with the Divine Presence, Will and Force into a way of Knowledge more complete and integral than any the mere creature intelligence can construct or the search of the intellect can discover.
Lastly, the practice of this Yoga of sacrifice compels us to renounce all the inner supports of egoism, casting them out of our mind and will and actions, and to eliminate its seed, its presence, its influence out of our nature. All must be done for the Divine; all must be directed towards the Divine. Nothing must be attempted for ourselves as a separate existence; nothing done for others, whether neighbours, friends, family, country or mankind or other creatures merely because they are connected with our personal life and thought and sentiment or because the ego takes a preferential interest in their welfare. In this way of doing and seeing all works and all life become only a daily dynamic worship and service of the Divine in the unbounded temple of his own vast cosmic existence. Life becomes more and more the sacrifice of the eternal in the individual constantly self-offered to the eternal Transcendence. It is offered in the wide sacrificial ground of the field of the eternal cosmic Spirit; and the Force too that offers it is the eternal Force, the omnipresent Mother. Therefore is this way a way of union and communion by acts and by the spirit and knowledge in the act as complete and integral as any our Godward will can hope for or our soul's strength execute.
It has all the power of a way of works integral and absolute, but because of its law of sacrifice and self-giving to the Divine Self and Master, it is accompanied on its one side by the whole power of the path of Love and on the other by the whole power of the path of Knowledge. At its end all these three divine Powers work together, fused, united, completed, perfected by each other.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Yoga of Divine Works, The Sacrifice, the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice [111-114],#KEYS
94:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
,#KEYS
95:It does not matter if you do not understand it - Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
*He has crammed the whole universe in a single book.* It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
You know, before writing Savitri Sri Aurobindo said to me, *I am impelled to launch on a new adventure; I was hesitant in the beginning, but now I am decided. Still, I do not know how far I shall succeed. I pray for help.* And you know what it was? It was - before beginning, I warn you in advance - it was His way of speaking, so full of divine humility and modesty. He never... *asserted Himself*. And the day He actually began it, He told me: *I have launched myself in a rudderless boat upon the vastness of the Infinite.* And once having started, He wrote page after page without intermission, as though it were a thing already complete up there and He had only to transcribe it in ink down here on these pages.
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
My child, yes, everything is there: mysticism, occultism, philosophy, the history of evolution, the history of man, of the gods, of creation, of Nature. How the universe was created, why, for what purpose, what destiny - all is there. You can find all the answers to all your questions there. Everything is explained, even the future of man and of the evolution, all that nobody yet knows. He has described it all in beautiful and clear words so that spiritual adventurers who wish to solve the mysteries of the world may understand it more easily. But this mystery is well hidden behind the words and lines and one must rise to the required level of true consciousness to discover it. All prophesies, all that is going to come is presented with the precise and wonderful clarity. Sri Aurobindo gives you here the key to find the Truth, to discover the Consciousness, to solve the problem of what the universe is. He has also indicated how to open the door of the Inconscience so that the light may penetrate there and transform it. He has shown the path, the way to liberate oneself from the ignorance and climb up to the superconscience; each stage, each plane of consciousness, how they can be scaled, how one can cross even the barrier of death and attain immortality. You will find the whole journey in detail, and as you go forward you can discover things altogether unknown to man. That is Savitri and much more yet. It is a real experience - reading Savitri. All the secrets that man possessed, He has revealed, - as well as all that awaits him in the future; all this is found in the depth of Savitri. But one must have the knowledge to discover it all, the experience of the planes of consciousness, the experience of the Supermind, even the experience of the conquest of Death. He has noted all the stages, marked each step in order to advance integrally in the integral Yoga.
All this is His own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which He has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all the descriptions, even the colours are exactly what I saw and the words, phrases are also exactly what I heard. And all this before having read the book. I read Savitri many times afterwards, but earlier, when He was writing He used to read it to me. Every morning I used to hear Him read Savitri. During the night He would write and in the morning read it to me. And I observed something curious, that day after day the experiences He read out to me in the morning were those I had had the previous night, word by word. Yes, all the descriptions, the colours, the pictures I had seen, the words I had heard, all, all, I heard it all, put by Him into poetry, into miraculous poetry. Yes, they were exactly my experiences of the previous night which He read out to me the following morning. And it was not just one day by chance, but for days and days together. And every time I used to compare what He said with my previous experiences and they were always the same. I repeat, it was not that I had told Him my experiences and that He had noted them down afterwards, no, He knew already what I had seen. It is my experiences He has presented at length and they were His experiences also. It is, moreover, the picture of Our joint adventure into the unknown or rather into the Supermind.
These are experiences lived by Him, realities, supracosmic truths. He experienced all these as one experiences joy or sorrow, physically. He walked in the darkness of inconscience, even in the neighborhood of death, endured the sufferings of perdition, and emerged from the mud, the world-misery to breathe the sovereign plenitude and enter the supreme Ananda. He crossed all these realms, went through the consequences, suffered and endured physically what one cannot imagine. Nobody till today has suffered like Him. He accepted suffering to transform suffering into the joy of union with the Supreme. It is something unique and incomparable in the history of the world. It is something that has never happened before, He is the first to have traced the path in the Unknown, so that we may be able to walk with certitude towards the Supermind. He has made the work easy for us. Savitri is His whole Yoga of transformation, and this Yoga appears now for the first time in the earth-consciousness.
And I think that man is not yet ready to receive it. It is too high and too vast for him. He cannot understand it, grasp it, for it is not by the mind that one can understand Savitri. One needs spiritual experiences in order to understand and assimilate it. The farther one advances on the path of Yoga, the more does one assimilate and the better. No, it is something which will be appreciated only in the future, it is the poetry of tomorrow of which He has spoken in The Future Poetry. It is too subtle, too refined, - it is not in the mind or through the mind, it is in meditation that Savitri is revealed.
And men have the audacity to compare it with the work of Virgil or Homer and to find it inferior. They do not understand, they cannot understand. What do they know? Nothing at all. And it is useless to try to make them understand. Men will know what it is, but in a distant future. It is only the new race with a new consciousness which will be able to understand. I assure you there is nothing under the blue sky to compare with Savitri. It is the mystery of mysteries. It is a *super-epic,* it is super-literature, super-poetry, super-vision, it is a super-work even if one considers the number of lines He has written. No, these human words are not adequate to describe Savitri. Yes, one needs superlatives, hyperboles to describe it. It is a hyper-epic. No, words express nothing of what Savitri is, at least I do not find them. It is of immense value - spiritual value and all other values; it is eternal in its subject, and infinite in its appeal, miraculous in its mode and power of execution; it is a unique thing, the more you come into contact with it, the higher will you be uplifted. Ah, truly it is something! It is the most beautiful thing He has left for man, the highest possible. What is it? When will man know it? When is he going to lead a life of truth? When is he going to accept this in his life? This yet remains to be seen.
My child, every day you are going to read Savitri; read properly, with the right attitude, concentrating a little before opening the pages and trying to keep the mind as empty as possible, absolutely without a thought. The direct road is through the heart. I tell you, if you try to really concentrate with this aspiration you can light the flame, the psychic flame, the flame of purification in a very short time, perhaps in a few days. What you cannot do normally, you can do with the help of Savitri. Try and you will see how very different it is, how new, if you read with this attitude, with this something at the back of your consciousness; as though it were an offering to Sri Aurobindo. You know it is charged, fully charged with consciousness; as if Savitri were a being, a real guide. I tell you, whoever, wanting to practice Yoga, tries sincerely and feels the necessity for it, will be able to climb with the help of Savitri to the highest rung of the ladder of Yoga, will be able to find the secret that Savitri represents. And this without the help of a Guru. And he will be able to practice it anywhere. For him Savitri alone will be the guide, for all that he needs he will find Savitri. If he remains very quiet when before a difficulty, or when he does not know where to turn to go forward and how to overcome obstacles, for all these hesitations and incertitudes which overwhelm us at every moment, he will have the necessary indications, and the necessary concrete help. If he remains very calm, open, if he aspires sincerely, always he will be as if lead by the hand. If he has faith, the will to give himself and essential sincerity he will reach the final goal.
Indeed, Savitri is something concrete, living, it is all replete, packed with consciousness, it is the supreme knowledge above all human philosophies and religions. It is the spiritual path, it is Yoga, Tapasya, Sadhana, in its single body. Savitri has an extraordinary power, it gives out vibrations for him who can receive them, the true vibrations of each stage of consciousness. It is incomparable, it is truth in its plenitude, the Truth Sri Aurobindo brought down on the earth. My child, one must try to find the secret that Savitri represents, the prophetic message Sri Aurobindo reveals there for us. This is the work before you, it is hard but it is worth the trouble. - 5 November 1967
~ The Mother, Sweet Mother, The Mother to Mona Sarkar, [T0],#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Time is the substance of which we are made ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 2:Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 3:Form and Substance are opposite ends of the same coin. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 4:Man in his true nature is substance, soul, spirit. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 5:Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. ~ aesop, @wisdomtrove 6:Happiness is the art of learning how to get joy from your substance. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 7:My & 8:The substance, the essence, the Spirit is freedom. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove 9:Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 10:The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. ~ william-shakespeare, @wisdomtrove 11:Sacrificing the earth for paradise is giving up the substance for the shadow. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 12:But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 13:Every substance is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 14:Every man starts with all there is. Everything is here-the essence and substance of all there is. ~ henry-ford, @wisdomtrove 15:Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the substance and cause of all things. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 16:God should not be called an individual substance, since the principle of individuation is matter. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 17:God should not be called an individual substance, since the principle of individuation is matter. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 18:Think of a star. A star burns its very substance to give light to others. You need to be like a star. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 19:Custard: A detestable substance produced by a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow, and the cook. ~ ambrose-bierce, @wisdomtrove 20:If your goals aren’t synced with the substance of your heart, then achieving them won’t matter much. ~ danielle-laporte, @wisdomtrove 21:Evil and good are everywhere, like shadow and substance; inseparable (for men) yet not hostile, only opposed. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 22:Everything is substance plus name and form. Name and form come and go, but substance remains ever the same. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 23:Interest works night and day in fair weather and in foul. It gnaws at a man's substance with invisible teeth. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 24:In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 25:To abandon the present in order to look for things in the future is to throw away the substance and hold onto the shadow. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 26:In any situation you can think of, impatience is a source of weakness and fear, while patience represents substance and strength. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 27:Politics, as hopeful men practise it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 28:tags: antireductionism, holism, interconnectedness, microcosm, monad, part, substance, systems-theory, whole8 likesLike ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 29:I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it. ~ nathaniel-hawthorne, @wisdomtrove 30:Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 31:The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 32:Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 33:Thoughts naturally arise. The point of meditation is not to banish thoughts but to make peace with them by realizing their lack of substance. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 34:The realms of the gods and demons - heaven, purgatory, hell - are of the substance of dreams. Myth, in this view, is the dream of the world. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 35:God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 36:There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 37:In our society, it is psychological murder to deprive a man of a job... you are in substance saying to that man "You have no right to exist. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 38:To experience relationships of substance and depth requires approaching and entering into relationships with consciousness and concern for the other. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 39:Facts of experience are valued in Zen more than representations, symbols, and concepts-that is to say, substance is everything in Zen and form nothing. ~ d-t-suzuki, @wisdomtrove 40:The mind can make substance, and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. ~ lord-byron, @wisdomtrove 41:It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I read, because what I read becomes the very substance and text of my mind. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 42:Just as dream is a part of sleep, unreal in its arising, so all and everything is pure mind, never separated from it, and without substance or attribute. ~ longchenpa, @wisdomtrove 43:We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by a certain perfection of moral activity. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 44:All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance of original justice. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 45:No one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition. By the speed of its change, it scatters and gathers again. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 46:The monad, of which we shall speak here, is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 47:And as every state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding state, so that the present state of it is big with the future. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 48:Travel, which had once charmed him, seemed, at length, unendurable, a business of color without substance, a phantom chase after his own dream's shadow. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 49:Every present state of a simple substance is the natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 50:We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of our own destinies, design a life of substance and truly begin to live our dreams. ~ les-brown, @wisdomtrove 51:As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 52:In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 53:I like to avoid concessions to faint-heartedness. One can never tell where that road may lead one; one gives way first in words, and then little by little in substance too. ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 54:Matter, which the uninformed mind regards as the most real substance in Nature, really is merely the product of the ideative thought of the Universal Mind of Spirit. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 55:The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do? ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 56:Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 57:The ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 58:Emerson holds that God is the Universal Substance, from which the universe is formed; the Universal Mind which holds the mind of all; the Universal Spirit which is immanent in all men. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 59:I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 60:Words enable us to transfer our thoughts from inside our own mind into the mind of another. They have the power to alter history, to describe the past, and to bring meaning and substance to the present. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 61:The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance of which was divine had been given back to me today by this friend of mine who taught me dancing. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove 62:A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 63:This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 64:True thusness is the substance of thought, and thought is the function of true thusness. There is no thought except that of true thusness. Thusness does not move, but its motion and function are inexhaustible. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 65:Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 66:The individual spirit, which is You, is constantly at work manifesting its Creative Power, playing upon Material Substance, working upon and “working up” this Plastic Medium by the power of your Will. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 67:Jealousy, and local policy mix too much in all our public councils for the good government of the Union. In a words, the confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance . . . . ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 68:We ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God. ~ denis-diderot, @wisdomtrove 69:I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much. ~ nathaniel-hawthorne, @wisdomtrove 70:We ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God. ~ thomas-aquinas, @wisdomtrove 71:When I see an object there is no will; when its sensations are carried to the brain, there comes the reaction, which says "Do this", or "Do not do this", and this state of the ego-substance is what is called will ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 72:In reality, which means in our actual experience, all experience is one seamless substance. The duality between the inside self and the outside object, world or other is never actually experienced. It is always imagined. ~ rupert-spira, @wisdomtrove 73:The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 74:It can feel as if the entire body has dropped away or has become transparent, as if its substance were in some way erased. It can feel as if there is nothing but breath flowing freely across all the boundaries of the body. ~ jon-kabat-zinn, @wisdomtrove 75:Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 76:Use every incident of the day to remind you that without you as the witness there would be neither animal nor God. Understand that you are both, the essence and the substance of all there is. and remain firm in your understanding. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 77:Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 78:We think there is someplace other than here to get to‚that’s what drives the whole pursuit. Only when the pursuit ceases, is it possible to recognize what comprises you: pure being, pure consciousness. This is actually the very substance of your own self and being. ~ adyashanti, @wisdomtrove 79:It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Il√∫vatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove 80:The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 81:Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,& 82:Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story, so that when one matter is despatchedlove for instancewe go on, in an orderly manner, to the next. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 83:According to quantum field theory, fields alone are real. They are the substance of the universe and not & 84:Who is that is dreaming all of this? Ecstasy, pure ecstasy, joy beyond understanding, bliss beyond the dry dullness of the mind's philosophical ranging, light beyond any light in this world - The substance and the essence of all existence is this light, the transcendental light. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 85:Every soul and spirit has some degree of continuity with the universal spirit, which is recognized to be located not only where the individual soul lives and perceives, but also to be spread out everywhere in its essence and substance, as many Platonists and Pythagoreans have taught. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 86:By realisation I mean a wonderful experience of peace, goodness and beauty, when the world makes sense and there is an all-pervading unity of both substance and essence. While such experience does not last, it cannot be forgotten. It shines in the mind, both as memory and longing. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 87:Our mind is the foundation of all our actions, whether they are actions of body, speech, or mind, i.e., thinking. Whatever we think, say, or do arises from our mind. What our consciousness consumes becomes the substance of our life, so we have to be very careful which nutriments we ingest. ~ thich-nhat-hanh, @wisdomtrove 88:This interconnection or accommodation of all created things to each other, and each to all the others, brings it about that each simple substance has relations that express all the others, and consequently, that each simple substance is a perpetual, living mirror of the universe. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 89:For the social ecologist language is not "communication." It is not just "message." It is substance. It is the cement that holds humanity together. It creates community and communication. ... Social ecologists need not be "great" writers; but they have to be respectful writers, caring writers. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 90:In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 91:When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. For nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo change of aspect. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 92:Of the eternal incorporeal substance nothing is changed, is formed or deformed, but there always remains only that thing which cannot be a subject of dissolution, since it is not possible that it be a subject of composition, and therefore, either of itself or by accident, it cannot be said to die. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 93:When we understand that what we deeply long for can never be found in an object... substance... activity... relationship or state... our longing naturally and effortlessly loses its direction and dynamism and flows back to its source, and is revealed as the happiness for which we were in search. ~ rupert-spira, @wisdomtrove 94:One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound - strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 95:This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 96:Will of REALITY is Universal Energy. The Pure Logic of REALITY is Universal Law. The Being of REALITY is Universal Life. The Substance of REALITY is Universal Substance. The Infinite Mind of REALITY, in its Ideative and Volitional activities, is the Creative and Conative Power of the Universe. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 97:Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general. ~ gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz, @wisdomtrove 98:The proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause people's substance to be drained away. When their substance is drained away, they will be afflicted by heavy exactions. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and their incomes dissipated. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 99:The external world of physics has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions. Arthur Eddington ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 100:The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They who preach this truth preach the gospel in whatever else they may be mistaken; but they who preach not the atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 101:The moment you start talking you create a verbal universe, a universe of words, ideas, concepts and abstractions, interwoven and inter-dependent, most wonderfully generating, supporting and explaining each other and yet all without essence or substance, mere creations of the mind. Words create words, reality is silent. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove 102:Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 103:Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove 104:THE WISE have ever asserted the phenomenal universe to be but an appearance in Spirit; and yet Spirit is seen to be Indivisible and Changeless. The phenomenal universe is perceived to have been created in the essence, nature, substance, and very being of Spirit; but Spirit itself is and remains ever Inseparable and Immutable. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 105:In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement. ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 106:In fact, though their acquaintance had been so short, they had guessed, as always happens between lovers, everything of any importance about each other in two seconds at the utmost, and it now remained only to fill in such unimportant details as what they were called; where they lived; and whether they were beggars or people of substance. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 107:Only perhaps in the United States, which alone of countries can do without governing,every man being at least able to live, and move off into the wilderness, let Congress jargon as it will,can such a form of so-called Government continue for any length of time to torment men with the semblance, when the indispensable substance is not there. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove 108:He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys Before they drop full music on; He stuns you by degrees. Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow by fainter hammers, further heard, Then nearer, then so slow Your breath has time to straighten Your brain to bubble cool,- Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 109:A fiery shield is God's Word; of more substance and purer than gold, which, tried in the fire, loses nought of its substance, but resists and overcomes all the fury of the fiery heat; even so, he that believes God's Word overcomes all, and remains secure everlastingly, against all misfortunes; for this shield fears nothing, neither hell nor the devil. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 110:Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on Earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 111:A photograph that is merely a superficial record of the subject fails as an aesthetic expression of that subject. The expression must be an emotional amplification, and this emotional amplification relates to point of view, organization, revelation of substance through textures, tonal relations, and the perfection of the technical expression of all these elements. ~ amsel-adams, @wisdomtrove 112:We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness. When we return to our true nature, our thoughts and perceptions no longer appear as modifications of a single substance, they come into being and subside like waves of the ocean. ~ jean-klein, @wisdomtrove 113:Our breath is the most precious substance in our lives, and yet we totally take for granted when we exhale that our next breath will be there. If we did not take another breath, we would not last 3 minutes. Now if the Power that created us has given us enough breath to last for as long as we shall live, can we not trust that everything else we need will also be supplied? ~ louise-hay, @wisdomtrove 114:Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! ~ lewis-carroll, @wisdomtrove 115:But there is no substance under the things I have gathered together about me. I am hollow, and my structure of pleasures and ambitions has no foundation. I am objectified in them. But they are all destined by their very contingency to be destroyed. And when they are gone there will be nothing left of me but my own nakedness and emptiness and hollowness, to tell me that I am a mistake. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 116:People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 117:... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial you have to use not a shadow but a sign, not the limitation but the image. The image is a new and different reality, and of course it does not convey an impression of some object, but the mind of the subject; and that is something else again. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 118:We can conceive a thinking being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose the mind to be reduced even below the life of anoyster. Suppose it to have only one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider it in that situation. Do you conceive any thing but merely that perception? Have you any notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other perceptions can never give you that notion. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove 119:The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only exists with order and virtue, but cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 120:And, as in the case of sensible images, if the artist look without distraction upon the archetypal form, not distracted by sight of anything else, or in any way divided in attention, he will duplicate, if I may so speak, the very person that is being sketched, whoever he may be, and will shew the reality in the likeness, and the archetype in the image, and each in each, save the difference of substance; ~ pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite, @wisdomtrove 121:I am thinking; therefore I exist. (... ) I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is solely to think, and which does not require any place, or depend on any material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly, this & 122:For the powers of our mind, life, and body are bound to their own limitations, and however high they may rise or however widely expand, they cannot rise beyond them. But still, mental man can open to what is beyond him and call down a Supramental Light, Truth, and Power to work in him and do what the mind cannot do. If mind cannot by effort become what is beyond mind, Supermind can descend and transform mind into its own substance. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 123:Most marvelous and enviable is that fecundity of fancy which can adorn whatever it touches, which can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked-for beauty, make flowers bloom even on the brow of the precipice, and, when nothing better can be had, can turn the very substance of rock itself into moss and lichens. This faculty is uncomparingly the most important for the vivid and attractive exhibition of truth to the minds of men. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove 124:In our rapid and externalized world, language has become ghostlike, abbreviated to code and label. Words that would mirror the soul carry the loam of substance and the shadow of the divine. The sense of silence and darkness behind the words in more ancient cultures, particularly in folk culture, is absent in the modern use of language. Language is full of acronyms; nowadays we are impatient of words that carry with them histories and associations. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 125:As the idea develops in Universal Mind it takes on a greater and still greater degree of materiality, just as does an idea of the human mind when one is "thinking out" an invention, a poem, a picture, or any other product of constructive imagination. After a time there appears a peculiar tenuous quasi-material substance, which is the "Mother Nature" of matter and physical energy and in which abides also the possibilities of life and mind. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 126:The sum and substance of the whole matter is that a man must love God, must be restless for Him. It doesn't matter whether you believe in God with form or God without form. You may or may not believe that God incarnates Himself as man. But you will realize Him if you have that yearning. Then He himself will let you know what He is like. If you must be mad, why should you be mad for the things of the world? If you must be mad, be mad for God alone. ~ sri-ramakrishna, @wisdomtrove 127:Matter cannot be conceived to actually exist, as the only real substance is Universal Mind, and that the material and phenomenal universe is nothing but a series of mental appearances and impressions which appear and disappear in accordance with mental laws which are called "The Laws of Nature"; that the only reality of the phenomenal world consists in its being consciously "perceived" by God, Spirit, the Absolute, or whatever Ultimate reality may be termed. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 128:The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove 129:George Berkeley was a bishop of the Church of England, who lived a.d. 1685– 1753. He was the founder of the modern school of Idealism, which system he developed largely upon the basis of Locke, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibnitz. He held that matter cannot be conceived to actually exist, the only real substance being mind; and that the material world is nothing but a complex of mental impressions which appear and disappear in accordance with established laws of nature. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 130:The universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything which is within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art. ~ marcus-aurelius, @wisdomtrove 131:What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair dies to become a piece of firewood, and the firewood dies to become ash. You give different names to the different shapes the wood takes, but the basic substance is there always. If we could always remember this, we would never worry about the loss of anything. We never lose anything; we never gain anything. By such discrimination we put an end to unhappiness. ~ swami-satchidananda-saraswati, @wisdomtrove 132:All things are linked with one another, and this oneness is sacred; there is nothing that is not interconnected with everything else. For things are interdependent, and they combine to form this universal order. There is only one universe made up of all things, and one creator who pervades them; there is one substance and one law, namely, common reason in all thinking creatures, and all truth is one -if, as we believe, there is only one path of perfection for all beings who share the same mind. ~ marcus-aurelius, @wisdomtrove 133:In diabetes mellitus the case is as follows: the ego-organization, as it submerges in the astral and etheric realm, is so weakened that it can no longer effectively accomplish its action upon the sugar-substance. The sugar then undergoes the processes in the astral and etheric realms which should take place in the ego-organization... . From all this we see that a real healing process for diabetes mellitus can only be initiated if we are in a position to strengthen the ego-organization of the patient. ~ rudolf-steiner, @wisdomtrove 134:Of the eternal corporeal substance (which is not producible ex nihilo, nor reducible ad nihilum, but rarefiable, condensable, formable, arrangeable, and "fashionable") the composition is dissolved, the complexion is changed, the figure is modified, the being is altered, the fortune is varied, only the elements remaining what they are in substance, that same principle persevering which was always the one material principle, which is the true substance of things, eternal, ingenerable and incorruptible. ~ giordano-bruno, @wisdomtrove 135:The mold in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it - made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 136:A living body is not a fixed thing but a flowing event, like a flame or a whirlpool: the shape alone is stable, for the substance is a stream of energy going in at one end and out at the other. We are particularly and temporarily identifiable wiggles in a stream that enters us in the form of light, heat, air, water, milk, bread, fruit, beer, beef Stroganoff, caviar, and pate de foie gras. It goes out as gas and excrement - and also as semen, babies, talk, politics, commerce, war, poetry, and music. And philosophy. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 137:In this country, unfortunately, as all over the world, we care so little, we have no deep feeling about anything. Most of us are intellectual-intellectuals in the superficial sense of being very clever, full of words and theories about what is right and what is wrong, about how we should think, what we should do. Mentally we are highly developed, but inwardly there is very little substance or significance; and it is this inward substance that brings about true action, which is not action according to an idea. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 138:The pie should be eaten "while it is yet florescent, white or creamy yellow, with the merest drip of candied juice along the edges, (as if the flavor were so good to itself that its own lips watered!) of a mild and modest warmth, the sugar suggesting jelly, yet not jellied, the morsels of apple neither dissolved nor yet in original substance, but hanging as it were in a trance between the spirit and the flesh of applehood... then, O blessed man, favored by all the divinities! eat, give thanks, and go forth, & 139:Every human soul contains, potentially, the knowledge of the Universal Mind. In solution, in every mind, is all the knowledge of the Universe, and the exploration of the whole ocean is but the exploration of the drop. The adept is able to ascertain every bit of & 140:Are we not justified in asserting the existence of Will in the Universal Mind of SPIRIT? Cannot we conceive of SPIRIT manifesting Will, without destroying or affecting in any way the facts of its essence, nature, substance, and very being? Nay, more, are we not compelled by reason to assert the fact of Will in SPIRIT? Do we not find in Will the reason and explanation of the creative activities manifest in the Universe? Some of the world's clearest thinkers have gone so far as to assert that the One Ultimate REALITY is Will, and nothing but Will. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 141:There is a relentless search for the factual and this quest often lacks warmth or reverence. At a certain stage in our life we may wake up to the urgency of life, how short it is. Then the quest for truth becomes the ultimate project. We can often forage for years in the empty fields of self-analysis and self-improvement and sacrifice much of our real substance for specks of cold, lonesome factual truth. The wisdom of the tradition reminds us that if we choose to journey on the path of truth, it then becomes a sacred duty to walk hand in hand with beauty. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 142:There is no class of substance to which the Brahman belongs, no common genus. It cannot therefore be denoted by words which, like “being” in the ordinary sense, signify a category of things. Nor can it be denoted by quality, for it is without qualities; nor yet by activity because it is without activity—“at rest, without parts or activity,” according to the Scriptures. Neither can it be denoted by relationship, for it is “without a second” and is not the object of anything but its own self. Therefore it cannot be defined by word or idea; as the Scripture says, it is the One “before whom words recoil.” Shankara” ~ aldous-huxley, @wisdomtrove 143:In that Great Ocean of Universal or Cosmic Mind, bodies of Substance are but as floating specks of dust— or even bubbles formed of the substance of that Ocean itself— on the surface of that Ocean, there may arise waves, currents, ripples, eddies, whirlpools,— storms, hurricanes, tempests,— from its bosom may rise vapor, that after stages of clouds, rain-drops, flowing in streams, rivers, bays, at last again reach the source of its origin. These disturbances and changes we call Energy, Force, Motion— but they are but surface manifestations, and the Great Ocean is serene in its depths, and, in reality, is unchanged and undisturbed. ~ william-walker-atkinson, @wisdomtrove 144:The external world of physics has … become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions. Later perhaps we may inquire whether in our zeal to cut out all that is unreal we may not have used the knife too ruthlessly. Perhaps, indeed, reality is a child which cannot survive without its nurse illusion. But if so, that is of little concern to the scientist, who has good and sufficient reasons for pursuing his investigations in the world of shadows and is content to leave to the philosopher the determination of its exact status in regard to reality. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 145:Consciousness wakes up to itself. That is who you are. It may not be who you think you are. We have objectified ourselves as this particular body, or the sensations that go through the body, or our emotions, or our history. But those are all objects in our minds. They are thoughts, concepts. True awakening is the recognition that those objects are made of nothing, no substance. And yet they are never separate from the subjective, endless consciousness that one is. So, who awakens? You awaken! And you are already awake as consciousness. That is the paradox. However it is spoken of, the truth cannot be caught in a concept. But it can be realized, and that is who you are. ~ gangaji, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Praise is a substance. ~ Roberts Liardon, #NFDB
2:Spirit is a tangible substance. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
3:You think the shadow is the substance. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
4:Style with substance = impact ~ Chris Guillebeau, #NFDB
5:The substance of painting is light. ~ Andre Derain, #NFDB
6:Substance should outweigh perfection. ~ Phil Ramone, #NFDB
7:Number was the substance of all things. ~ Pythagoras, #NFDB
8:Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB
9:Chocolate is a substance worth existing for ~ C G Drews, #NFDB
10:The body is the substance of the stone. ~ George Ripley, #NFDB
11:Verses devoid of substance, melodious trifles. ~ Horace, #NFDB
12:Cinnamon is not a controlled substance. ~ Kiersten White, #NFDB
13:The shadow has become the substance. ~ Daniel J Boorstin, #NFDB
14:They made data a controlled substance. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
15:Spirit is a specific and identifiable substance. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
16:Truth is a substance soluble in lichen vodka. ~ Lev Grossman, #NFDB
17:Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
18:The substance of faith is a hope in the unseen. ~ Ron Suskind, #NFDB
19:I do not admire greatness that has no substance. ~ Mary Balogh, #NFDB
20:Time is the substance of which we are made ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
21:Don't settle for style. Succeed in substance. ~ Wynton Marsalis, #NFDB
22:The spiritual substance from which comes all ~ Charles Fillmore, #NFDB
23:It was not a translation, it was the substance. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
24:Show is not substance; realities govern wise men. ~ William Penn, #NFDB
25:What has no substance can penetrate what has no opening. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
26:I want to entertain people, but with some substance. ~ Irrfan Khan, #NFDB
27:You can't have style if you don't have substance. ~ Ozwald Boateng, #NFDB
28:Each substance of a grief has twenty shadows. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
29:Wikipedia is a victory of process over substance. ~ Ethan Zuckerman, #NFDB
30:A person is an individual substance of a rational nature. ~ Boethius, #NFDB
31:Eliminate the unnecessary and focus on the substance. ~ Tommy Ramone, #NFDB
32:sole substance of genius is the daily act of showing up. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
33:Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. ~ Aesop, #NFDB
34:Beginning with brand rather than substance is dangerous. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
35:Form and Substance are opposite ends of the same coin. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
36:Man in his true nature is substance, soul, spirit. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
37:The fool too late, his substance eaten up, reckons the cost. ~ Plautus, #NFDB
38:Work is the only thing that gives substance to life. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
39:Personal Identity depends on Consciousness not on Substance ~ John Locke, #NFDB
40:The only substance properly so called is the soul. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
41:A substance that makes you ill if you don't eat it. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
42:My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me. ~ Franz Kafka, #NFDB
43:The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars! ~ W B Yeats, #NFDB
44:My fear is my substance, and probably the best part of me.
~ Franz Kafka,#NFDB
45:The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows. ~ Stephen Johnson Field, #NFDB
46:high words, that bore Semblance of worth not substance, gently ~ John Milton, #NFDB
47:In a state of pseudo-death you restore your substance. ~ Marlene van Niekerk, #NFDB
48:Inherently, each one of us has the substance within to achieve ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
49:Made X. The Substance of the Shadow XI. Dusk XII. Darkness ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
50:Temples cannot imprison within their walls the divine Substance. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
51:People think of me as a mannequin. All show and no substance. ~ Brooke Shields, #NFDB
52:Happiness is the art of learning how to get joy from your substance. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
53:The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact. ~ Angela Merkel, #NFDB
54:All matter comes from a primary substance, the luminiferous ether ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
55:The capacity for total wonder is the very substance of awakening. ~ Daniel Odier, #NFDB
56:Boredom is actually the most plentiful substance in the universe. ~ Amber Dermont, #NFDB
57:Color is sensitivity in material form, substance in its purest form. ~ Yves Klein, #NFDB
58:In general, substance-induced mania will subside within four weeks. ~ Ken Dickson, #NFDB
59:Success? It has the shortest half-life of any known substance. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
60:Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows.’ (Richard II) ~ Svetlana Alexievich, #NFDB
61:Let’s not dwell on shadows that are yet to show substance.” The ~ Elisabeth Storrs, #NFDB
62:The journey to freedom is paved by the substance of our character. ~ Erwin McManus, #NFDB
63:The substance, the essence, the Spirit is freedom. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, #NFDB
64:We have to look at the substance of something rather than the shadow. ~ Bell Hooks, #NFDB
65:Words are like souls. Soundless, even shapeless. But full of substance. ~ Amy Harmon, #NFDB
66:I don't have a right to pick the president's cabinet on substance. ~ Christopher Dodd, #NFDB
67:In the age of television, image becomes more important than substance. ~ S I Hayakawa, #NFDB
68:Let's give some substance to patriotism. It may take a generation. ~ Richard Dreyfuss, #NFDB
69:my dreams won’t matter if I don’t persevere to give them substance. ~ Christine Nolfi, #NFDB
70:The soul of man is of the imperishable substance of the stars! ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
71:The very substance of ambition is merely the shadow of a dream. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
72:As applied to substance abuse, the cognitive approach helps individuals ~ Aaron T Beck, #NFDB
73:Aside from Velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
74:Exchange value forms the substance of money, and exchange value is wealth. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
75:God is una substantia, tres personae—one “substance” and three “persons. ~ Daryl Aaron, #NFDB
76:Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
77:No amount of alcohol or any illegal substance would make me touch him. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
78:Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
79:The universe is a single life comprising one substance and one soul. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
80:To mourn is to touch directly the substance of divine compassion. ~ Cynthia Bourgeault, #NFDB
81:Whatever it is that is feeling the chair is the substance of the chair. ~ Rupert Spira, #NFDB
82:Once and for all, I did not use steroids or any other illegal substance. ~ Mark McGwire, #NFDB
83:The hardest substance in the human body is the white enamel of the teeth ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
84:[A vitamin is] a substance you get sick from if you don't eat it. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
85:Treasure the shadow. ... There are no shadows save from substance cast. ~ Edith M Thomas, #NFDB
86:Hand at Cards IX. The Game Made X. The Substance of the Shadow XI. Dusk ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
87:they pledged their lives and their substance to maintain the cause of Christ. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
88:Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
89:It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
90:The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance. ~ Maud Hart Lovelace, #NFDB
91:The taste might remain on her brain, but the substance would be gone, ~ Catherine McKenzie, #NFDB
92:The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
93:did not have enough substance to trigger the opening of a supermarket door ~ Jerry Spinelli, #NFDB
94:Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ~ Len Deighton, #NFDB
95:Sacrificing the earth for paradise is giving up the substance for the shadow. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
96:Thus even though it is not durable, there is no interruption in substance. ~ Lalita Vistara, #NFDB
97:A Golden Globe is a mood-altering substance, there's no doubt about that. ~ Rachel Griffiths, #NFDB
98:Any five-year-old girl – though boys would do – gave substance to her continued ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
99:Hypnagogic dreams are not uncommon in situations of trauma or substance abuse. ~ Ken Dickson, #NFDB
100:Maybe younger than the thirty he looked, still caught in style over substance. ~ Mary Hughes, #NFDB
101:Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
102:Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
103:Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
104:Door VIII. A Hand at Cards IX. The Game Made X. The Substance of the Shadow ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
105:I have depeloped a substance which allows me to command time at my discretion. ~ Ren Barjavel, #NFDB
106:Television is the creamy filling that distracts us from the substance our lives ~ David Niven, #NFDB
107:... There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
108:Worse, the language of politics itself has been vacated of substance and meaning. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
109:I lost my hair mixing a substance called white gunpowder on the kitchen table. ~ Mark Oliphant, #NFDB
110:I think I enjoy playing human beings no matter the substance of their character. ~ Ezra Miller, #NFDB
111:As I've gotten older, I've become attracted to things that have substance. ~ Sean William Scott, #NFDB
112:Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
113:This world is a republic all whose citizens are made of one and the same substance. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
114:Without meaning, without substance, without aim: a mere 'public opinion'. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
115:All feathers and pretty song, little prince. Is there anything of substance to you? ~ Megan Derr, #NFDB
116:Faith becomes a bridge between where I am and where I want to go- it is a substance. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
117:The human body is not a thing or a substance, given, but a continuous creation. ~ Norman O Brown, #NFDB
118:What is literature compared with cooking? The one is shadow, the other is substance. ~ E V Lucas, #NFDB
119:Joy was substance over optics,” he said. “Joy was a long-term thinker. Joy was bold. ~ Brad Stone, #NFDB
120:Modern spirituality has no hell, no doctrine, no substance. It is about feeling. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
121:The realization of our true substance and potential is the purpose of creation. ~ Morihei Ueshiba, #NFDB
122:A thought is a substance, producing the thing that is imagined by the thought. ~ Wallace D Wattles, #NFDB
123:By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in ~ Baruch Spinoza, #NFDB
124:I do not think I was afraid. There must be substance to breed fear, and I was hollow. ~ Tanith Lee, #NFDB
125:When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance? ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
126:Behavior is the substance of religion. Belief is the substance of relationship. ~ Charles F Stanley, #NFDB
127:Envy will merit as its shade pursue, But like a shadow, proves the substance true. ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
128:imaginary things were often the only items of real substance in people's lives. ~ Brandon Sanderson, #NFDB
129:There is universal substance which is divine substance because where else can it be? ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
130:Today is, after all, today, but yesterday is of the same substance as tomorrow. ~ Franz Grillparzer, #NFDB
131:When I'm dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance. ~ Freddie Mercury, #NFDB
132:No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceived, my substance is not here. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
133:In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance ~ James Madison, #NFDB
134:The universe is a giant perceptual matrix. It perceives itself through its substance ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
135:He who meditates on God for many days has substance in him, has divine power in him. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
136:The closer you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it appeared. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
137:There is no substance which is not a poison; all are poisonous. Only the dose determines. ~ Paracelsus, #NFDB
138:No, no, I am but shadow of myself:
You are deceived, my substance is not here; ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
139:Skating alone is an art. Doing it on a substance? I don't know. That's got to be tough. ~ Wayne Gretzky, #NFDB
140:That's what happens with writing. Ingredients bubble and cook. Material becomes substance. ~ Alex Haley, #NFDB
141:air and gases are distinct things, the first being a substance, the second a state of matter. ~ Sam Kean, #NFDB
142:An empty cart rattles loudly,” she said, meaning, One who lacks substance boasts loudest. ~ Alan Brennert, #NFDB
143:A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
144:Culture (science) is the form of religion; Religion is the substance of culture (science). ~ Paul Tillich, #NFDB
145:It is not the number of Kata you know, but the SUBSTANCE of the Kata you have acquired. ~ Gogen Yamaguchi, #NFDB
146:Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation. ~ Walter Benjamin, #NFDB
147:Although she was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost substance in her presence. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
148:But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
149:Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrew 11:1 KJV) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
150:Love is the substance of all life. Everything is connected in love, absolutely everything. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
151:Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream But of a shadow, summed with all his substance. ~ George Chapman, #NFDB
152:We put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking. ~ Susan Cain, #NFDB
153:Words are leaves, the substance consists of deeds, which are the true fruits of a good tree. ~ Elizabeth I, #NFDB
154:Every substance is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
155:Or in other words, it's the substance you've got when you start that determines the outcome. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
156:You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance. ~ Charles Ives, #NFDB
157:Before one can generalize, formalize, and axiomatize, there must be a mathematical substance. ~ Hermann Weyl, #NFDB
158:depth and substance.
the two most exquisite qualities.
be it in a poem
or a person. ~ Sanober Khan,#NFDB
159:Image is only temporal. Substance endures. Who said, "Image is everything"? And who believed it? ~ T F Hodge, #NFDB
160:Hope is incomplete and ongoing. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and is complete. ~ Louis Zamperini, #NFDB
161:Meditation on Savitri, September 28, 2018 FridayBeing was an inert substance driven by Force. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
162:We are authors, all of us, concerned with beginning, with making, with sources and substance. ~ Diane Wakoski, #NFDB
163:Christ is the motto of the Christian life because Christ is the substance of the Christian life. ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
164:Every man starts with all there is. Everything is here-the essence and substance of all there is. ~ Henry Ford, #NFDB
165:Image teaching” uses words and ideas. “Substance teaching” communicates by the way you live. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
166:something fresh.” I held up a bowl with a substance that once might have been cereal, but now ~ Renee Pawlish, #NFDB
167:There is not a body, however small, which does not enclose a portion of the divine substance. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
168:To get some of the substance of why [Michael] Flynn [is Defense Adviser] is so controversial. ~ John Heilemann, #NFDB
169:I don't think in national categories. For me it [policy] is about concepts and substance. ~ Jean Claude Juncker, #NFDB
170:Love is substance; Lust, illusion. Only in the surge of passion do the two mingle in confusion. ~ Calvin Miller, #NFDB
171:Names gave people weight, life, substance. Meaning, when she wanted everything to be meaningless. ~ Cole McCade, #NFDB
172:Nothing can be lower or more wholly instrumental than the substance and cause of all things. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
173:Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 ~ Alvin Plantinga, #NFDB
174:Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
175:Substance of the Shadow XI. Dusk XII. Darkness XIII. Fifty-two XIV. The Knitting Done XV. The ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
176:The Scriptures of God are my only foundation and substance in all matters of weight and importance. ~ John Knox, #NFDB
177:You know how I play it, better safe than sorry 'stead of searching for substance at every single party. ~ Drake, #NFDB
178:Chaos is mater, origin, source, mother; materia, the substance from which all things are made. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
179:She was sunlight and steel, spun into a substance he’d never encountered before.
-Ethan Ransom ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
180:The bleak optimism has skewed the overall views of our societal perspectives on substance abuse. ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
181:The truly great ones rely on substance, and not on surface, hold on to the fruit, and not to the flower. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
182:This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
183:To make use of your mind to think conceptually is to leave substance and attach yourself to form ~ Huangbo Xiyun, #NFDB
184:We had given it a name, a substance, and somehow, in doing that, we had condemned ourselves. ~ Storm Constantine, #NFDB
185:AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
186:A master drives you toward the substance so that you will stop defending and protecting the forms. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
187:Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,
And evidence of those that are not seen... ~ Dante Alighieri,#NFDB
188:No pleasure is simpler, no luxury cheaper, no consciousness-altering substance more benign. ~ James Norwood Pratt, #NFDB
189:That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity. ~ Samantha Shannon, #NFDB
190:Water was a wild, capricious substance: nothing solid, nothing permanent, nothing as it appeared. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
191:Chaos is mater, origin, source, mother; materia, the substance from which all things are made. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
192:Character, self-discipline, determination, attitude and service are the substance of life. ~ Marian Wright Edelman, #NFDB
193:Heaven forbid if beauty were to have substance. Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
194:One must not live one's life through men but must be complete on oneself as a woman of substance. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
195:Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters. ~ George Monbiot, #NFDB
196:If you wear a hoodie but aren't registered to vote, you got the symbolism but missed the substance. ~ Jesse Jackson, #NFDB
197:Joy is not just a substance or an emotion – it is a person. Christ has become our inexhaustible joy. ~ John Crowder, #NFDB
198:What has she eaten to be so awake this early, and where can I get some of this magical substance? ~ Leah Rae Miller, #NFDB
199:Form and substance are one and the same. Form is the life expression and substance the living painting. ~ Asger Jorn, #NFDB
200:That's money, the substance that makes the world real. There's something so corrupt and sexy about it ~ Sally Rooney, #NFDB
201:What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
202:Everything one sees is merely a projection of what one does not see, its true nature and substance. ~ Fernando Sabino, #NFDB
203:Sometimes we pay too much attention in Washington to public relations, as opposed to the substance. ~ Spencer Abraham, #NFDB
204:Your faith could have no substance if you did not also accept the reality of its effects in this world. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
205:A substance so far beyond their ken that they might have been carrion birds pecking at the eyes of god. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
206:Being will not have magnitude, if it is substance. For each of the two parts must be in a different sense. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
207:Books, in the plural lose their solidity of substance and become a gas, filling all available space. ~ John Derbyshire, #NFDB
208:I believe that birth control is just like every other medication even though it's a controlled substance. ~ Rima Fakih, #NFDB
209:The soul and substance of what customarily ranks as patriotism is moral cowardice -- and always has been. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
210:Think of a star. A star burns its very substance to give light to others. You need to be like a star. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
211:To represent constantly the world as one single being with one single soul and one single substance. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
212:Trump is what Obama critics think Obama is: Someone who's focused on symbolism rather than substance. ~ Jonathan Chait, #NFDB
213:Air is the very substance of our freedom, the substance of superhuman joy.... aerial joy is freedom. ~ Gaston Bachelard, #NFDB
214:Goals give life substance. - To strive actively to achieve some goal gives your life meaning and substance. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
215:If your goals aren’t synced with the substance of your heart, then achieving them won’t matter much. ~ Danielle LaPorte, #NFDB
216:It needs to connect with the earth. Things that are processed and reprocessed lose their substance. ~ Alexander McQueen, #NFDB
217:She looked at him for a long moment. "There really is more substance to you than you let on, isn't there?£ ~ Jen Turano, #NFDB
218:Truth is not an opinion. It’s a force like gravity. It’s the most valuable substance known to man. ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
219:We often destroy the world’s real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance. ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
220:A king does not expend his substance to enslave men, but by his conduct and example makes them free. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
221:God should not be called an individual substance, since the principle of individuation is matter. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
222:In America, where surface has always passed for substance, people always believe guys like Frank Dunning. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
223:The Man of Truth has learned that Illusion is the One Reality, and that Substance is the Great Impostor. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
224:aspartame, described by Dr. Joseph Mercola as “by far the most dangerous substance added to most foods today. ~ Jim Marrs, #NFDB
225:but the substance of what he said was so vividly impressed upon my mind ~ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, #NFDB
226:Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB
227:Unity is sweet substance of the heart
And not a chain that binds. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Plays and Stories, Act I,#NFDB
228:matter and energy are the same thing, that size is an illusion, and that time is a material substance. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
229:Rebecca's eyes were like faith,—"the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ~ Kate Douglas Wiggin, #NFDB
230:Within each and every one of us is a divine power that needs no substance or anything external to know bliss. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
231:Your past is your shadow. It has form but no substance, except in the places you allow it to touch you. ( ~ Tananarive Due, #NFDB
232:Ambition does not see the earth she treads on: The rock and the herbage are of one substance to her. ~ Walter Savage Landor, #NFDB
233:at the Door VIII. A Hand at Cards IX. The Game Made X. The Substance of the Shadow XI. Dusk XII. Darkness ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
234:Nothing can exist which is not substance and power of Brahman. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Philosophy of Rebirth, #NFDB
235:Heat may be generated and destroyed by certain processes, and this shows that heat is not a substance. ~ James Clerk Maxwell, #NFDB
236:Some of the substance of English words, I just don't understand at all because the culture's so strange to me ~ Chow Yun Fat, #NFDB
237:And I know what the Bible says—that faith is the substance of things not seen, the evidence of things hoped for. ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
238:Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
239:[Race] had no substance, like a shadowy shape that terrifies in the dark but vanishes by the light of day. ~ Nayantara Sahgal, #NFDB
240:The air had become heavy, not because it had greater substance, but because there was nothing left to breathe. ~ Louise Gl ck, #NFDB
241:Evil and good are everywhere, like shadow and substance; inseparable (for men) yet not hostile, only opposed. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
242:He had caught both substance and shadow — both fortune and affection, and was just the happy man he ought to be. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
243:I almost snort at that. He hated substance abuse and wanted to go out with me? That would have been interesting. ~ S G Redling, #NFDB
244:I'm drawn to roles that have real substance, that aren't just the victim or the teenage girl or the girlfriend. ~ Lily Collins, #NFDB
245:Their jaws unhinged and they vomited out an oily black substance, which fell to the floor like a river of snakes. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
246:Water has more properties that are beneficial to human beings than any other substance. Also it can drown you. ~ Kathryn Davis, #NFDB
247:Writing music always happened for me in periods when I wasn't under the influence of mind-altering substance. ~ Anthony Kiedis, #NFDB
248:Dark matter is a mysterious substance that has gravity but does not interact with light in any known way. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
249:Everything is substance plus name and form. Name and form come and go, but substance remains ever the same. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
250:VII. A Knock at the Door VIII. A Hand at Cards IX. The Game Made X. The Substance of the Shadow XI. Dusk XII. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
251:Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
252:Water was a strange substance, like memory - much to push against, but nothing solid to hang on to. ~ Miranda Beverly Whittemore, #NFDB
253:A coprophage calls for a plate, shits on it and eats the shit, exclaiming, "Mmmm, that's my rich substance. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
254:Einstein said, if everything exists as a substance of qualities, and qualities exist only in mind, then all is mind ~ Dyan Cannon, #NFDB
255:Guys who always shined their shoes were usually self-involved asswipes who figure superficiality trumps substance. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
256:Your past is your shadow. It has form but no substance, except in the places you allow it to touch you. Shadows. ~ Tananarive Due, #NFDB
257:As long as women are bound by poverty and as long as they are looked down upon, human rights will lack substance. ~ Nelson Mandela, #NFDB
258:Interest works night and day in fair weather and in foul. It gnaws at a man's substance with invisible teeth. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
259:In this state of pure felicity the soul is enlarged and the material substance that is subject to her profiteth also. ~ Tneng Tseu, #NFDB
260:I reveled in class discussion and the Socratic method of drawing substance out of calcified minds untrained to think. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
261:Quoting an old proverb: "An empty cart rattles loudly." she said. meaning, One who lacks substance boasts loudest. ~ Alan Brennert, #NFDB
262:We speak of virtue, honour, reason; but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance. ~ Wilhelm Wundt, #NFDB
263:What if all's appearance? Is not outside seeming real as substance inside? Both are facts, so leave me dreaming. ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
264:Which dreams, indeed, are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
265:At the factory, I deal with ex-cons, substance abusers, and sexual harassers. And I'm not just talking about my mom. ~ George Lopez, #NFDB
266:Christ’s all-sufficiency as our Shepherd is the substance behind the command to be anxious about nothing (Phil. 4:6). ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
267:He is the king of Nature because he alone in the world knows himself...His substance is that of God Himself. ~ The Rose of Bakamate, #NFDB
268:I would like a nice, powerful, mind-altering substance. Preferably one that will make my unborn children grow gills. ~ Parker Posey, #NFDB
269:Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons. ~ Miguel de Unamuno, #NFDB
270:Therefore, the substance of [Donald] Trump policies never got covered, because it wasn't what interested the media. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
271:To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
272:I've spent various periods of my career being thought of as various things, various degrees of substance and ideas. ~ Ben Mendelsohn, #NFDB
273:Los Angeles is a Neverland of Lost Boys who preen and crow far too often and demonstrate substance far too seldom. I ~ Steven Rowley, #NFDB
274:No form remains permanently in a substance; a constant change takes place, one form is taken off and another is put on. ~ Maimonides, #NFDB
275:as the Age of Bush gave way to the Era of Obama, little of substance changed. That was the greatest irony of all. ~ Andrew J Bacevich, #NFDB
276:As the religious authorities often say, the institution is human, while the substance of the religion is transcendent. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
277:I always want to feel good and I never want to feel bad. Because of this, I’m experienced in substance abuse issues. ~ Chloe Caldwell, #NFDB
278:In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced. ~ Barry Commoner, #NFDB
279:Man is a machine and in the whole universe there is but a single substance, matter, variously modified. ~ Julien Offray de La Mettrie, #NFDB
280:The poor looking shepherd of the dessert is in substance very rich with all the magical treasures of the desert. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
281:To abandon the present in order to look for things in the future is to throw away the substance and hold onto the shadow. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
282:A catalyst is a substance which alters the velocity of a chemical reaction without appearing in the final products. ~ Wolfgang Ostwald, #NFDB
283:In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
284:Unbuttered toast is a substance half complete, and to be forced to eat it in that state is necessarily to feel deprived. ~ John Thorne, #NFDB
285:Consumption seems to be our favorite high, our nationally sanctioned addiction, the all-American form of substance abuse. ~ Vicki Robin, #NFDB
286:Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
287:There is not a single health-promoting substance present in grains that you can’t also get from vegetables and fruit. ~ Melissa Hartwig, #NFDB
288:If we go deeply into the experience of whatever is known or loved we find no substance there other than Awareness itself. ~ Rupert Spira, #NFDB
289:Intentions must mature into commitments if we are to become persons with definition, with character, with substance. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
290:Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved. ~ Emile M Cioran, #NFDB
291:The shadows of things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike the substance. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
292:The way most people use and are used by their minds gives substance to the belief that we are barely evolved apes. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
293:God then made the first woman, not directly out of his own substance, but from Adam's rib. Her purpose was to serve man. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
294:If you look up the word "gab" in the dictionary, it's insignificant of importance, of no substance. That's what gab is. ~ Malachy McCourt, #NFDB
295:Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
296:Taoism shows us how to deal with life and death by realizing everything here is transitory but its substance is eternal. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
297:The true substance of love lies in the act of howling words of love with a desperation of a man jumping into the high seas. ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
298:Union in action with the triune God is Christian spirituality. That is where the life is drawing its substance from God. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
299:Books are no longer read but eaten, not made of paper but of some informational substance, fully digestible, sugar-coated. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
300:Closing one's ears to the complaints of partisans would also entail closing one's mind to the substance of their arguments. ~ Daniel Okrent, #NFDB
301:He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. ~ Various, #NFDB
302:Thus the sum and substance of all doctrine is this, that we are not justified by any works, but that faith in Christ saves. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
303:Aluminium’s sixty-year reign as the world’s most precious substance was glorious, but soon an American chemist ruined everything. ~ Sam Kean, #NFDB
304:A magician is one who is capable of consciously molding the substances of matter of the three and a half worlds of material substance. [...], #NFDB
305:As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
306:Conversion and sanctification are the renewing of the mind, a change not of the substance, but of the qualities of the soul. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
307:Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance. ~ John Henry Newman, #NFDB
308:In any situation you can think of, impatience is a source of weakness and fear, while patience represents substance and strength. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
309:We spend most of our lives working furiously toward goals that, when achieved, turn out to hold less substance than a Twinkie. ~ Judah Smith, #NFDB
310:My council to Ted [Turner] is that he should watch Fox Business. He'll be elated to find how much substance there is in our news. ~ Lou Dobbs, #NFDB
311:We should cultivate the serenity, because in the substance of sincerity germinate the most beautiful flowers of the Spirit. ~ Samael Aun Weor, #NFDB
312:Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind. ~ Charles Fillmore, #NFDB
313:I was going to kill that doctor when he shoved his finger up my ass but then I realized the possibilities of that substance. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
314:Studies conducted around the world have shown a close correlation between materialist values, depression, and substance abuse. ~ Jeremy Rifkin, #NFDB
315:The love of God and people is the whole substance of life. Nothing is more important. This is sacred work and very much counts. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
316:...caffeine is a stimulant drug. Caffeine is also the only addictive substance that we readily give to our children and teens. ~ Matthew Walker, #NFDB
317:Fear is nothing more than the dark side of thought, it has substance only in the mind. We create it, and we alone can destroy it. ~ Steve Alten, #NFDB
318:Everything is full of sacramental substance, everything. Each thing and each function is ever ready to light up into a sacrament. ~ Martin Buber, #NFDB
319:Politics, as hopeful men practise it in the world, consists mainly of the delusion that a change in form is a change in substance. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
320:We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love ~ W B Yeats,#NFDB
321:When thou canst see that the substance of His being is thy being,... then thou knowest thy soul...So to know oneself is the true knowledge. ~ id, #NFDB
322:As my uncle always says, 'If your vibe outweighs your substance, you're destined to be a novelty.' I think that is true in all art. ~ Mat Kearney, #NFDB
323:By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain. ~ William Stanley Jevons, #NFDB
324:Darla’s head bled profusely after the crash. Roslyn’s tongue tingled as she remembered tasting the gooey substance out of curiosity. ~ A C Arthur, #NFDB
325:For none of the others can exist independently: substance alone is independent: for everything is predicated of substance as subject. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
326:The closest thing to a law of nature in business is that form has an affinity for expense, while substance has an affinity for income. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB
327:The softest, freest, most pliable and changeful living substance is the brain-the hardest and most iron-bound as well. ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman, #NFDB
328:We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart's grown brutal from the fare, More substance in our enmities Than in our love ~ William Butler Yeats, #NFDB
329:Can You now say with certainty whether this supramental substance will help decisively to realise this new birth?
EVIDENTLY.
~ The Mother,#NFDB
330:Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes.... ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
331:Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance. ~ Saint John Henry Newman, #NFDB
332:He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
333:His fingers were permanently yellowed with chalk dust rather than nicotine, but it was still the residue of an addicting substance. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
334:Now, I worry a bit about the TEDification of the world where style trumps substance, so hopefully you have a good blend of both! ~ Scott D Anthony, #NFDB
335:One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so; for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
336:The shape of the heaven is of necessity spherical; for that is the shape most appropriate to its substance and also by nature primary. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
337:The substance of grief is not imaginary. It's as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things, it can kill. ~ Barbara Kingsolver, #NFDB
338:He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
339:if that same person decided to seek another way, or several other ways, there was no substance on earth that could stop such ambition. ~ C J Archer, #NFDB
340:What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it. - A substance in a cushion ~ Gertrude Stein, #NFDB
341:[115] Immateriality of the soul. When philosophers have subdued their passions, what material substance has managed to achieve this? ~ Blaise Pascal, #NFDB
342:clingy”. It’s an ugly word, isn’t it, that describes the honey of the heart as a sticky, pestersome substance that won’t brush off. ~ Lionel Shriver, #NFDB
343:Frankly I'm not great with heroin addicts. I tried heroin, but it was by accident. I'm not great with that level of substance abuse. ~ Michael Stipe, #NFDB
344:I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
345:Playing quarterback ... it's no joke ... The difference here with Johnny Manziel, there's a lot of style and very little substance. ~ Boomer Esiason, #NFDB
346:Self-justification is a verbal defense for restoring the appearance of righteousness without doing anything about the substance. ~ Eugene H Peterson, #NFDB
347:The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
348:Winter was creeping in and, at barely three o'clock in the afternoon, the day was losing substance and dissolving into a dusty twilight. ~ C J Tudor, #NFDB
349:Yes, you need substance in politics - but I think your style also says something about how you arrive at some of your conclusions. ~ Charles Kennedy, #NFDB
350:CHOICE. That’s the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
351:..it often falls out that somewhat is produced of nothing; for lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
352:Karate has helped me lots, otherwise I might have got lost in substance abuse or something like the things a lot of other people do. ~ Dolph Lundgren, #NFDB
353:Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
354:Success is no proof of virtue. In the case of a book, quick acclaim is presumptive evidence of a lack of substance and originality. ~ Walter Kaufmann, #NFDB
355:That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
356:The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
357:When you’re forced to be simple, you’re forced to face the real problem. When you can’t deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance ~ Paul Graham, #NFDB
358:Words have less substance than air. Don't tell me about your zealous dreams, your firm convictions, your profound love―show me. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
359:All souls are merely determinations of the universal Soul. Bodies taken separately are only varied and transient forms of material substance. ~ Kapila, #NFDB
360:some truths were jagged as a rusty blade, horrible, serrated, irremovable, lodged forever in the insubstantial substance of the soul. ~ Brian Staveley, #NFDB
361:The opulence at the head office is often inversely related to the financial substance of the firm. Charlie Munger, paraphrasing Parkinson ~ Janet Lowe, #NFDB
362:What the poet sees and feels, not what he opines, is the real substance of his poetry. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Poets of the Dawn - II, #NFDB
363:Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine Substance... ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
364:All souls are merely determinations of the universal Soul. Bodies taken separately are only varied and transient forms of material substance. ~ Kapila, #NFDB
365:In my recovery, I learned that the pain of my defects is the very substance God uses to cleanse my character and to set me free. ~ Alcoholics Anonymous, #NFDB
366:The fifth regular solid must then, they thought, correspond to some fifth element that could only be the substance of the heavenly bodies. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
367:If your project has real substance, ultimately the money will follow you like a common cur in the street with its tail between its legs. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
368:Luck is a finite and rare substance in the universe, like palladium or cobalt. To use it, you have to take it from somebody else. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
369:Matter is the last word of the descent, so it is also the first word of the ascent. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ascending Series of Substance, #NFDB
370:Our journey is about faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Not the proving of such things. ~ James Rollins, #NFDB
371:Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
372:But one thing took deep root in me—the conviction that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
373:Do not to others what would displease thee done to thyself: this is the substance of the Law; all other law depends on one’s good pleasure. ~ Mahabharata, #NFDB
374:For Jung, fantasy is not a derogatory term, but a discourse that most nearly approximates to the substance and movement of the unconscious. ~ David Tacey, #NFDB
375:I don't feel like there's any need to hide the fact that I smoke pot. It's a harmless herbal substance that increases sensory appreciation. ~ Ezra Miller, #NFDB
376:I know what they said even if they would not say it to my face. People love to talk. They love to slander you if you have any substance. ~ Charles Portis, #NFDB
377:Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
378:Perhaps I will be a great man...I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course ~ Lorraine Hansberry, #NFDB
379:The symbol is greater than visible substance. . . . Unhappy the land that has no symbols, or that chooses their meaning without great care. ~ Freya Stark, #NFDB
380:This religion’s substance is its lack of substance. In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
381:We all think we have time, you know. It's this miracle substance and there seems to be so much of it, and then all of a sudden, it's gone. ~ Eloisa James, #NFDB
382:We all think we have time, you know. It’s this miracle substance and there seems to be so much of it, and then all of a sudden, it’s gone. ~ Eloisa James, #NFDB
383:Above all, the ability to feel the force of an argument apart from the substance it deals with is the strongest weapon against prejudice. ~ Jacques Barzun, #NFDB
384:By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
385:Foolish is the mind of a man to make bogeys for itself and to live in terrors of fear for things which lack of the substance of truth. ~ Richard Llewellyn, #NFDB
386:Till now, I told myself, "You have only seen the shadow and been well content with it; now, I am going to lead you into the substance. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
387:Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips. ~ Jean Giraudoux, #NFDB
388:We ourselves are the substance we withdraw to, not from, as we pull our overextended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
389:Addiction isnt about substance - you arent addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood that the substance brings. ~ Susan Cheever, #NFDB
390:A Not So Big House feels more spacious than many of its oversized neighbors because it is space with substance, all of it in use every day. ~ Sarah Susanka, #NFDB
391:Even when she seems forthcoming, her answers almost always veer sideways, providing something like substance without giving away the heart. ~ Dot Hutchison, #NFDB
392:Illusions are shadows moving endlessly across the ground. The shadows are quite real but they're shadows. They have very little substance. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
393:The ideas of things intellectually known pass into the substance of the intellect much more than do foods into the substance of the body. ~ Marsilio Ficino, #NFDB
394:Man's shortcomings and sins are all due to the substance of the body and not to its form; while all his merits are exclusively due to his form. ~ Maimonides, #NFDB
395:We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children. ~ John Sculley, #NFDB
396:God is all there is - God includes everything, all possibility and all action, for Spirit is the invisible essence and substance of all form. ~ Ernest Holmes, #NFDB
397:I assert that, in any particular natural science, one encounters genuine scientific substance only to the extent that mathematics is present. ~ Immanuel Kant, #NFDB
398:"The value of emptiness lies in the movements it permits or in the substance which it mediates and contains. But the emptiness must come first." ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
399:A man's center of gravity, the substance of his being, consists in what he has executed and performed in his life; the woman's, in what she is. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
400:Christmas means 'giving,' and the gift without the giver is bare. Give of yourselves; give of your substance; give of your heart and mind. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
401:He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
402:If we could follow the slogan that says,"Turn off the TV and open a good book" we would do something of substance for a future generation. ~ Gordon B Hinckley, #NFDB
403:Once you’ve read too many trashy best-sellers, you begin to look for something with substance, something that attempts to define the universe. ~ Jessica Zafra, #NFDB
404:The realms of the gods and demons - heaven, purgatory, hell - are of the substance of dreams. Myth, in this view, is the dream of the world. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
405:We are all spiritually powerless, however, and not just those physically addicted to a substance, which is why I address this book to everyone. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
406:What is this, fundamentally? What is its nature and substance, its reason for being? What is it doing in the world? How long is it here for? ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
407:A government which requires of the people the contribution of the bulk of their substance and rewards cannot be classed as a free government. ~ Calvin Coolidge, #NFDB
408:As the day progressed we moved inside. Well into the night, we talked about nothing much of substance. Insignificance. Wonderful unimportance. ~ Nnedi Okorafor, #NFDB
409:God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
410:Goodwill is not enough; we need to learn the art of making others happy. Art is the essence of life, and the substance of art is mindfulness. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
411:I didn't want to do a throwaway, mindless movie with fart jokes just to make 6-year-olds laugh. I want to provide my children with some substance. ~ Fred Durst, #NFDB
412:I use the terms "sky" and "earth" because as a human I cannot imagine those elements not being there. It is a way to give substance to nothingness. ~ Mark Tufo, #NFDB
413:I wasted my substance, I know I did, on riotous living, so I did, but there's nothing on record to show I did more than my betters have done. ~ Rudyard Kipling, #NFDB
414:Memory is the storehouse in which the substance of our knowledge is treasured up. ~ Regarding Psalm 119:55 ~ Charles Bridges, An Exposition of Psalm 119, 1827., #NFDB
415:There is no way in which a simple substance could begin in the course of nature, since it cannot be formed by means of compounding. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
416:The shadow has to disappear and by its disappearance reveal the spirit’s unclouded substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Release from the Ego, #NFDB
417:The sky both exists and doesn’t exist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
418:Which dreams indeed are ambition;for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. A dream itself is but a shadow. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
419:But that wasn't enough for him anymore. He wanted more. He wanted substance and depth and love. He wanted Miracle. It was as simple as that. ~ Michelle Leighton, #NFDB
420:Drinking if excessive affects the substance and quality of the energy. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga, #NFDB
421:I had ignored that black cellar and gone looking for the substance of Orgoreyn aboveground, in daylight. No wonder nothing had seemed real. I ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
422:Si inventer la substance, c'est indirectement inventer l'accident, plus l'invention est puissant, performante, et plus l'accident est dramatique. ~ Paul Virilio, #NFDB
423:Spending my time living a life that looked great on Instagram, even as I rotted from the inside out since it gave me nothing of substance. All ~ Santino Hassell, #NFDB
424:We’d try to define these terms like honor, integrity, etc. It really forced me to find some kind of substance to these terms that shape our lives. ~ Laura Bates, #NFDB
425:But then, I’ve always believed love is the most volatile substance in the universe. It erupts, it incinerates, and then it simply flames out. . . . ~ S J Kincaid, #NFDB
426:I don't want the Obama era to be more about symbolism than substance when it comes to black people. I love him, but I love black people even more. ~ Tavis Smiley, #NFDB
427:The problem with liberal Protestantism in America is not that it has not been orthodox enough, but that it has lost a lot of religious substance ~ Peter L Berger, #NFDB
428:The same substance composes us--the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star--we are all one, all moving to the same end. ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
429:What is of the substance of the utterly Real must itself be real. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #NFDB
430:God can only set in motion: He cannot control the things he has made. ~ T'ao Ch'ien, Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, "Spirit expounds" (transl. by Arthur Waley), #NFDB
431:If, then, ‘substance’ is not attributed to anything, but other things are attributed to it, how does ‘substance’ mean what is rather than what is not? ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
432:Sometimes when you start losing detail, whether it's in music or in life, something as small as failing to be polite, you start to lose substance. ~ Benny Goodman, #NFDB
433:The primal substance of our thoughts is an extremely rich gathering of information that’s accumulated, exchanged, and continually elaborated. Even ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
434:To experience relationships of substance and depth requires approaching and entering into relationships with consciousness and concern for the other. ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
435:In our society, it is psychological murder to deprive a man of a job...you are in substance saying to that man "You have no right to exist. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
436:The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss! ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
437:Facts of experience are valued in Zen more than representations, symbols, and concepts-that is to say, substance is everything in Zen and form nothing. ~ D T Suzuki, #NFDB
438:Faith was something to be placed on oneself and on those to whom one was bound by honor, not in deities that had no substance, that did not exist. ~ Michael R Hicks, #NFDB
439:It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I read, because what I read becomes the very substance and text of my mind. ~ Helen Keller, #NFDB
440:The mind can make substance, and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. ~ Lord Byron, #NFDB
441:Faith is the substance of whatever it is that we hope for. The important thing is that we teach that faith is connected to good works and responsibility. ~ T D Jakes, #NFDB
442:in this waking time his presence, once so solid, lacked any substance or form; it was merely a shadow at the edge of every moment of the day and night. ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
443:Shame’s hold over you leads you to believe you don’t deserve to be rid of shame. As a result, you treat hope as if it were a contaminated substance. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
444:Sorry has got to be the most over-used cliched get-out clause in the history of mankind. Tossed out flippantly without any real meaning or substance. ~ Siobhan Davis, #NFDB
445:The kernel, the soul - let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances - is plagiarism. ~ Jonathan Lethem, #NFDB
446:Too often the man who complains the loudest has nothing of substance to say. Too often the man who complains the most provides no answers of solution. ~ Jayce O Neal, #NFDB
447:Addiction itself is the process with which an individual becomes personally consumed with an object, a subject, a substance, or a particular activity. ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
448:People who aren't asleep when Ruby comes around have to take sleeping pills. Everyone is afraid of those pills- even the substance- abuse guests. ~ Patricia McCormick, #NFDB
449:extreme reaction to a test substance could lead to a Bureau request for cooperation from local authorities in suppressing information of the situation. ~ H P Albarelli, #NFDB
450:No form remains permanently in a substance; a constant change takes place, one form is taken off and another is put on. ~ Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), #NFDB
451:Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to resist it. ~ J D Vance, #NFDB
452:The foundation of living a simply luxurious life is made up of substance, passion, quality, sensibility, sincerity, appreciation, and continual growth. ~ Shannon Ables, #NFDB
453:The power is that which generated and maintains the universe... the life-force, the stuff of creation. It is the very substance of existence itself. ~ Scott Cunningham, #NFDB
454:Darkness is where we begin and where we end. We don't usually see light traveling in darkness of space because we only can see its reflection on substance. ~ Ala Bashir, #NFDB
455:Ether is the only substance we are confident of in dynamics. One thing we are sure of and that is the reality and substantiality of the luminferous ether. ~ Lord Kelvin, #NFDB
456:One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
457:There substance was a resonant harp of self,
A net for the constant lightnings of the spirit, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The House of the Spirit and the New Creation,#NFDB
458:Whether we switch on happiness, peace, and good health or switch on anxiety, worry, and negativity, we are changing the physical substance of the brain. ~ Caroline Leaf, #NFDB
459:Christian prayer and Christian piety, we believe, are based only upon the faithfulness of the Christian message and to Him who is the substance of it. ~ J Gresham Machen, #NFDB
460:In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same -- Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence. ~ Stephen Levine, #NFDB
461:I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD. It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be. ~ Albert Hofmann, #NFDB
462:There's substance to the point that sociological information is new. We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history or more. ~ Anthony Kennedy, #NFDB
463:We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by a certain perfection of moral activity. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
464:All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance of original justice. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
465:Information, long of reach, devastating, and as a side benefit, a substance with no serious legal repercussions, was superior to any other form of power. ~ Louise Erdrich, #NFDB
466:...most Substance-addicted people are also addicted to thinking, meaning they have a compulsive and unhealthy relationship with their own thinking. ~ David Foster Wallace, #NFDB
467:No one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition. By the speed of its change, it scatters and gathers again. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
468:Our spoken word first hammers a thing desired into shape. Our continued spoken word brings this shaped substance forth and clothes it with a visible body. ~ H Emilie Cady, #NFDB
469:The monad, of which we shall speak here, is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds; simple, that is to say, without parts. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
470:Countless acts of observation give substance and reality to what would otherwise be ghosts of existence. This solves the so-called “measurement problem” of ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
471:Hollywood is in the perception business where you create layers to create mystery. In Silicon Valley it's about taking away the layers to get to the substance. ~ MC Hammer, #NFDB
472:I saw, he was in a different league on a different planet. Everybody says we need substance in these debates, you've got it. You've got it from [Ted] Cruz. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
473:She, who does not see herself, is thus seen, in others. Therein lies the omnipotence of this substance whereof she is made, without any particular ties. ~ Marguerite Duras, #NFDB
474:Ten properties of an object, according to Leonardo: light and dark, color and substance, form and position, distance and nearness, movement and stillness. ~ Robert Bresson, #NFDB
475:To fear the examination of any proposition apears to me an intellectual and a moral palsy that will ever hinder the firm grasping of any substance whatever. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
476:There is one universe out of all things, one god pervading all things, one substance, one law, one common reason in all intelligent beings, and one truth. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
477:At all times, look at the thing itself—the thing behind the appearance—and unpack it by analysis: cause substance purpose and the length of time it exists. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
478:How violently do rumors blow the sails of popular judgments! How few there be that can discern between truth and truth-likeness, between shows and substance! ~ Philip Sidney, #NFDB
479:I am Gravity, I am That against which the Rocket must struggle, to which the pre-historic wastes submit and are transmuted to the very substance of History. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
480:I can see now that a concept or even a feeling makes no sense unless out of our substance we spin around it a web of references, of relationships, of values. ~ Ella Maillart, #NFDB
481:In the end, I must proclaim that no good can be achieved of false means. For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method. ~ Brandon Sanderson, #NFDB
482:Money. The trickiest substance in life--as it's the way we keep score, measure our worth, and think we can control our destinies. Money: the essential lie. ~ Douglas Kennedy, #NFDB
483:To an extent, his good looks would insulate him from suspicion, for in this new century, image trumped substance and appearance often mattered more than truth. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
484:Travel, which had once charmed him, seemed, at length, unendurable, a business of color without substance, a phantom chase after his own dream's shadow. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
485:We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
486:Kant takes a free will to be a being or substance with the power to cause a state of the world (or a whole series of such states) spontaneously or from itself. ~ Allen W Wood, #NFDB
487:Some new machinery with adequate powers must be created now if our fine phrases and noble sentiments are to have substance and meaning for our children. ~ J William Fulbright, #NFDB
488:The intellectual quest, though fine as pearl or coral, is not the spiritual search. That spiritual search is on another level. Spiritual wine is a different substance. ~ Rumi, #NFDB
489:The term numinous is like the terms substance, meaning, being, and a host of other terms; in the final analysis we can only define them in terms of themselves. ~ James W Sire, #NFDB
490:Thought-mind
Where Knowledge is the leader of the act
And Matter is of thinking substance made, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind,#NFDB
491:Christianity says, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” And I say . “Recognise thyself in thy neighbour and that all men are in reality one and the same substance.” ~ Schopenhauer, #NFDB
492:Every present state of a simple substance is the natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
493:I work with The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. I sit proudly as one of only two recovering addicts on their board. ~ Jamie Lee Curtis, #NFDB
494:All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance. ~ Henri Poincare, #NFDB
495:Of no agenor of any religion, or party or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
496:Physically you are identical with and inseparable from the cosmic material substance, and socially you are inseparable from the large mass of humanity. ~ Krishnananda Saraswati, #NFDB
497:The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it. ~ Eric Butterworth, #NFDB
498:There is one only and true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three coeternal and coequal Persons, the same in substance but distinct in subsistence. ~ B B Warfield, #NFDB
499:It doesn’t matter if you’re talking 1958, 1985, or 2011. In America, where surface has always passed for substance, people always believe guys like Frank Dunning. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
500:These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
501:These were everyday sounds magnified by darkness. And darkness was nothing - it was not a substance, it was not a presence, it was no more than an absence of light. ~ Ian Mcewan, #NFDB
502:It was a passion neither of the mind nor of the heart, it was a force that comprehended them both, as if they were but the matter of love, its specific substance. ~ John Williams, #NFDB
503:The sum and substance of education is the right training that effectually leads the soul of the child at play on to the love of the calling in its adult life. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
504:When I look back at high school, or college, or when I was getting married, it's the girlfriends I had then that give substance and joy to that point in my life. ~ Victoria Scott, #NFDB
505:16Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. + ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
506:scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
507:We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of our own destinies, design a life of substance, and truly begin to live our dreams. ~ Les Brown, #NFDB
508:What will the U.S. senators have to say if there is, as many over here and in the rest of the world suspect, no substance to the allegations against my father and me? ~ Kojo Annan, #NFDB
509:Without the ability to visualize a goal and believe it will be reached, nothing of substance will be achieved. Not by anybody. Not at any time. Not in any place. ~ Robert Herjavec, #NFDB
510:Disputing the commonsense notion that all events require the prior existence of some underlying matter or substance. There is no antecedent static cabinet. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
511:The substance of the winds is too thin for human eyes, their written language is too difficult for human minds, and their spoken language mostly too faint for the ears. ~ John Muir, #NFDB
512:To know nature, the Tao, and the 'substance' of things. we must know it as, in the archaic sense, a man 'knows' a woman - in the warm vagueness of immediate contact. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
513:Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away. ~ Tyler Cowen, #NFDB
514:Unlike the older, more humanly shaped arts, which begin with a seed and accumulate their form organically, photography clips its substance out of an actual continuum. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
515:Best to keep it friendly and light, like a frothy meringue for dessert—enough sweet to end the meal on a happy note, without the substance to make you feel stuffed. ~ Amy E Reichert, #NFDB
516:CHAPTER XXIII WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OF A PLEASANT CONVERSATION BETWEEN MR. BUMBLE AND A LADY; AND SHEWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE MAY BE SUSCEPTIBLE ON SOME POINTS ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
517:Creative power is that receptive attitude of expectancy which makes a mold into which the plastic yet undifferentiated substance can flow and take the desired form. ~ Thomas Troward, #NFDB
518:In the coming year, I believe we can make sure America lives up to its legacy as a land of opportunity if the President is willing to back up his rhetoric with substance. ~ Ron Kind, #NFDB
519:“The Ancients believed in
the existence of a fifth humor
within the body, a mystical
substance of uncharted power.”
-THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE ~ Fiona Paul,#NFDB
520:I was angry at him and he was angry at me. Angry that I couldn’t be the girl from his songs who just gives and gives until there’s nothing left to her of any substance. ~ Holly Hall, #NFDB
521:... love was not a quantifiable substance. There was always more of it somewhere, and even after one love had been lost, it was by no means impossible to find another. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
522:Man can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows. The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream -- that is real, that is immortal. ~ Robert E Howard, #NFDB
523:Progress, the growth of power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom. ~ William Ellery Channing, #NFDB
524:Substance abuse is a disease which doesn't go away overnight. I'm working hard to overcome it. I did fail my recent drug test. I'm prepared to face the consequences. ~ Lindsay Lohan, #NFDB
525:The various reasons which we have enumerated lead us to believe that the new radio-active substance contains a new element which we propose to give the name of radium. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
526:Urine is a salty substance (though less so than the NASA Ames chili), and if you were to drink it in an effort to rehydrate yourself, it would have the opposite effect. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
527:Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little. ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
528:Yes, seasons, criticisms, and events can refine you—they have the potential to shape the mettle of your life, but they are not the substance of your life . . . God is. ~ Lisa Bevere, #NFDB
529:Yet Aristotle's excellence of substance, so far from being associated with the grand style, is associated with something that at times comes perilously near jargon. ~ Irving Babbitt, #NFDB
530:He was all show, and he had the conviction, as such people do, that show is the same as substance. He didn’t think he was fooling other people; he had fooled himself. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
531:Jesus makes it very clear that he came to build his kingdom. That implies not just a group of people but a way of life fully encompassing all matter and substance. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
532:The future is made up of only one substance and that is the present moment. By taking care of the present, you are doing everything you can to assure a good future. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
533:As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. ~ Mary Oliver, #NFDB
534:But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision. ~ Stephen Crane, #NFDB
535:My bitterness is not an abstract substance, it is as solid as a Christmas cake; I can cut it in slices and hand it round and there is still plenty left, for tomorrow. ~ Caitlin Thomas, #NFDB
536:[This legendary Amazonian substance is] a cybernetic transdimentional medium of some sort that is generated out of the mysteries of the physiology of the human body. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
537:Truth is the hardest substance in the world to pin down. But the one certainty is the awesome penalty exacted sooner or later from a society whose reporters stop trying. ~ Flora Lewis, #NFDB
538:All things are the same, familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
539:One of the things that makes a social-media cleanse so difficult is that every time we log on, every notification we get is an addictive substance. It's just like any drug. ~ Kim Stolz, #NFDB
540:Surely, if life is good, it is good throughout its substance; we cannot separate men's activities from women's and say, these are worthy of praise and these unworthy. ~ Winifred Holtby, #NFDB
541:"The future is made up of only one substance and that is the present moment. By taking care of the present, you are doing everything you can to assure a good future." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
542:The rift between God and nature would vanish if we knew how to experience nature, because what keeps them apart is not a difference of substance but a split in the mind. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
543:Disease [is] not an entity, but a fluctuating condition of the patient's body, a battle between the substance of disease and the natural self-healing tendency of the body. ~ Hippocrates, #NFDB
544:Education in the light of present-day knowledge and need calls for some spirited and creative innovations both in the substance and the purpose of current pedagogy. ~ Anne Sullivan Macy, #NFDB
545:I need to work on developing a new, less irritable personality. though I suspect that an empty nest would be at least a partial cure, today I resorted to substance abuse. ~ Eloisa James, #NFDB
546:In itself it is nothing. Nothing but a book: parchment, colouring, ink. Yet the most perishable material is at the same time the most durable substance in the world… ~ Lion Feuchtwanger, #NFDB
547:I saw people around me who were falling deeper and deeper into alcoholism and substance abuse. It's seductive because alcohol is amazing and drugs are amazing, they work so well. ~ Moby, #NFDB
548:It [love] was a passion neither of the mind nor of the heart, it was a force that comprehended them both, as if they were but the matter of love, its specific substance. ~ John McGahern, #NFDB
549:Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
550:Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
551:There is no logical reason why thoughts, which have no substance, should have so much power over you, nor is there any reason why you should become their slave ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #NFDB
552:If you are going to say a thing the substance of which is a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening them at the beginning by the form. ~ Ethel Lilian Voynich, #NFDB
553:In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
554:In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
555:I want my movies to be commercial, fun thrill rides but I also want them to have substance to them. The fun part is knowing how to roll up your sleeves and get it done. ~ Ric Roman Waugh, #NFDB
556:You are not the feelings or the thoughts or the contents of your awareness. None of these are who you are. You are the fullness of your Being, the substance of your presence. ~ A H Almaas, #NFDB
557:As the essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence of Spirit is Freedom
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of History,#NFDB
558:Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
559:I like to avoid concessions to faint-heartedness. One can never tell where that road may lead one; one gives way first in words, and then little by little in substance too. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
560:Myth, with its substance of symbol, rhythm and metaphor, bridges from the unknown to the knower and helps the human stand in some sort of meaningful relationship to mystery. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
561:The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. ~ Edward Weston, #NFDB
562:There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any real substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working on things that matter. ~ Dean Kamen, #NFDB
563:the substance of republican government was freely surrendered in the end by scared populations willing to trade any freedom for increasingly unreliable promises of security. In ~ Jay Allan, #NFDB
564:As the Tories know, the problem with setting yourself up as a shining example for others to follow is that when you get caught out, that proverbial substance really hits the fan. ~ Jo Brand, #NFDB
565:He who says he hates all kinds of flattery, and says so in earnest, has undoubtedly not as yet become acquainted with all kinds of it, whether in substance or in form. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg, #NFDB
566:It's 103 comedians, or however many it is, and how would everyone tell it. It's enough people of substance that it makes you think of the people who aren't there that are alive. ~ Bob Saget, #NFDB
567:She was no malleable, since frigid, substance upon which desires might be executed; she was not a true prostitute for she was the object on which men prostituted themselves. ~ Angela Carter, #NFDB
568:The outcome is to delegitimize and deconstruct the kings in effective ways in order to show that while they occupy the forms of power, they lack the substance of power. ~ Walter Brueggemann, #NFDB
569:Painting is concerned with the ten things you can see: these are darkness and brightness, substance and color, form and place, remoteness and nearness, movement and rest. ~ Leonardo da Vinci, #NFDB
570:The image that the Word creates in you is already a reality in the spirit realm. When you speak God's Word from your heart, then faith gives substance to the promises of God. ~ Charles Capps, #NFDB
571:The legal and judicial system view substance use as a criminal matter; while the mental health system has been fighting for generations to change that particular perspective. ~ Asa Don Brown, #NFDB
572:The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do? ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
573:True, I talk of dreams; which are children of the idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy; which is as thin of substance as air and more inconstant than the wind. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
574:Better to be like the falcon. Alone. Dependent on nothing but the air beneath her wings. At least for the falcon, the air had more substance than her foolish dreams of love. ~ Elizabeth Rolls, #NFDB
575:Man's shortcomings and sins are all due to the substance of the body and not to its form; while all his merits are exclusively due to his form. ~ Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), #NFDB
576:It was one way she had found to fill her solitary childhood, but it was more than that; the act of creation gave substance and shape to her life. It made order out of the chaos. ~ Cathy Holton, #NFDB
577:In 1958 the FDA confiscated, and then destroyed, a shipment of twenty-one thousand Dianazene tablets, which Hubbard was selling as a substance that prevented radiation sickness. ~ Janet Reitman, #NFDB
578:Abusive men are masters of excuse making. In this respect they are like substance abusers, who believe that everyone and everything except them is responsible for their actions. ~ Lundy Bancroft, #NFDB
579:And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,Will turn its private substance into green,And young shoots spread upon our inner world. ~ Theodore Roethke, #NFDB
580:But she was going to eat as much pie as she damn well pleased, because as far as she was concerned, sugar was a natural substance that kept people around her from getting injured. ~ Molly Harper, #NFDB
581:Cats and ghosts both partook of the saucers of milk and that was okay. They consumed different parts of it: the cats its substance, the ghosts its essence, and none went to waste. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
582:Depression," she heard the doctor say to her husband. "Sometimes it's provoked by the most banal things, for example, the lack of a chemical substance, serotonin, in the organism. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
583:I hate solitude, but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
584:It is beyond my comprehension that any humane person would withhold such a beneficial substance from people in such great need simply because others use it for different purposes. ~ Steven Gould, #NFDB
585:The cell, over the billions of years of her life, has covered the earth many times with her substance, found ways to control herself and her environment, and insure her survival. ~ Albert Claude, #NFDB
586:Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
587:If the philosopher makes his thought substance of poetry, he ceases to be a philosophic thinker and becomes a poet-seer of Truth. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Poetic Vision and the Mantra, #NFDB
588:... numbers have neither substance, nor meaning, nor qualities. They are nothing but marks, and all that is in them we have put into them by the simple rule of straight succession. ~ Hermann Weyl, #NFDB
589:The lived experiences which could not find adequate scientific expression in the substance doctrine of rational psychology were now validated in light of new and better methods. ~ Wilhelm Dilthey, #NFDB
590:There are things known—things experienced, felt, and understood—that words hold no power to convey. Attempting to do so only dilutes their substance and does them injustice. ~ Richelle E Goodrich, #NFDB
591:Nevertheless, the consuming hunger of the uncritical mind for what it imagines to be certainty or finality impels it to feast upon shadows in the prevailing famine of substance. ~ Eric Temple Bell, #NFDB
592:She was like a sheet anchor sometimes, a steadying influence on him, on everyone around her. Made people laugh, that sensible streak in her, but it also made her someone of substance. ~ Tim Winton, #NFDB
593:The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do? ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
594:Each man, therefore, is the entire world, bearing within his genes a memory of all mankind. Or as Leibniz put it: ‘Every living substance is a perpetual living mirror of the universe’ ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
595:Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
596:The higher mind is a thing in itself above the intellect. It is only when something of its power comes down and is modified in the lower mind substance that it acts as part of the intellect.
~ ?,#NFDB
597:The sum and substance of female education in America, as in England, is training women to consider marriage as the sole object in life, and to pretend that they do not think so. ~ Harriet Martineau, #NFDB
598:Transient bodies are only subject to destruction through their substance and not through their form, nor can the essence of their form be destroyed; in this respect they are permanent. ~ Maimonides, #NFDB
599:Although the sum and substance of the happy life is unalloyed freedom from care, and though the secret of such freedom is unshaken confidence... men gather together that which causes worry. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
600:As a language, Garbo's singularity was of the order of the concept, that of Audrey Hepburn is of the order of the substance; the face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn, an Event. ~ Roland Barthes, #NFDB
601:I will not sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance,complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
602:The creature called man has a strange history. He is not of one piece, nor was he born of a single moment in time. His elementary substance is stardust almost as old as the universe. ~ Loren Eiseley, #NFDB
603:Then said another -- "Surely not in vain
My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again. ~ Omar Khayy m,#NFDB
604:A world which increasingly consists of destinations without journeys between them, a world which values only "getting somewhere" as fast as possible, becomes a world without substance. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
605:Before one can become a magician he must learn to control his own mind; for mind is the substance with which the magician acts, and the power to control it is the beginning of magic. ~ Franz Hartmann, #NFDB
606:I will not sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
607:That is to say, that which is totally concealed from our eyes right now, namely the very substance and essence of God, we will see in all of his glory and majesty and splendor in heaven. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
608:This substance, which is manifold in its forms and protean in its transformations, has, in its state of living matter, one physiological name which has become familiar, that of protoplasm. ~ Asa Gray, #NFDB
609:Jung said that his work was one of melting down the fixed thought forms of world religions and pouring this melted substance into the molds of individual experience. ~ Monika Wikman, Pregnant Darkness, #NFDB
610:The biographies are very enlightening because you realise, "Oh my God, all these people I’ve admired - and tried to emulate even - when I was younger died tragically from substance abuse. ~ Eva Mendes, #NFDB
611:these are not real wants because they are not actual things. They are the by-products, the flavors and atmospheres of real things—shadows which have no existence apart from some substance. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
612:Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies; The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare, And shed their substance on the floating air. ~ George Crabbe, #NFDB
613:Why do I feel that ghosts are more real
Than these creatures of substance and matter?
Why does their song seem to drive me along
More than humanity’s drivel and pratter? ~ Walter Jon Williams,#NFDB
614:Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue,
But like a shadow, proves the substance true;
For envied wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known
Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own. ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
615:Weed's not as bad as everything else... 'cause weed is a background substance. You know what I mean, you can smoke some herb and still function. You ain't crisp... but you'll function. ~ Dave Chappelle, #NFDB
616:What makes a person a person? What combination of memory, history, imagination, experience, subjectivity, genetic substance, and that ineffable thing called the soul makes us who we are? ~ Dani Shapiro, #NFDB
617:Where do you think you’re going?” Dr. Nokes demanded…. “What do you have for directions?” And Dad… said, “I have the substance of things hoped for. I have the anticipation of things unseen ~ Leif Enger, #NFDB
618:[D]oes the real world have any more substance than visions and hallucinations when we're having them? At any given moment, what's happening in our minds is all and everything that happens. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
619:I have a real respect for tobacco as a substance, and it just seems very funny how the Western attitude is, "Wow, people are addicted to this, think of all the money you can make off it." ~ Jim Jarmusch, #NFDB
620:I think Chappelle set the bar when he came out with his show. To be as great as him or greater you have to push it a little further - as long as there's substance in terms of the material. ~ Aries Spears, #NFDB
621:It is easy to do things for our own families and loved ones, but to give of our substance for the stranger who is in need is the real test of our charity and love for our fellowmen. ~ Nathan Eldon Tanner, #NFDB
622:It's gratifying to know that you've appeared in someone else's dreams. It's proof that you exist, in a way, proof that you have substance and value outside the walls of your own mind. ~ Carolyn Parkhurst, #NFDB
623:There is no time limit, no statute of limitations. Sharing our lives with dear people to win them to Jesus is the substance of Christianity, the delightful work we’ve been commissioned to. ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
624:Think about the adiamante.” I was too tired to say much more. “It says more than I can.” And it did—the hardest manmade substance, and it couldn’t stand up to the souls of human beings. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
625:When asked Who I Am, the only answer possible is: I am the infinite, the vastness that is the substance of all things. I am no one and everyone, nothing and everything -- just as you are. ~ Suzanne Segal, #NFDB
626:Worthiness is what gives meaning and fulfillment. Success without fulfillment is empty. That’s like good looks without goodness. In life we need substance over form, not form over substance. ~ Shiv Khera, #NFDB
627:Your nipples are like Novocain.”
“You’re at a distinct advantage because I have no idea what controlled substance your nipples are like.” He ran his tongue across his top teeth. ~ Debra Anastasia,#NFDB
628:Hence while in respect of its substance and the definition that states what it really is in essence virtue is the observance of the mean, in point of excellence and rightness it is an extreme. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
629:So long as we are attached to the form, we shall be unable to appreciate the substance, we shall have no notion of the causes the knowledge of which is the true knowing. ~ Antoine the Healer : Revelations, #NFDB
630:Some record labels want to package you in a certain way and we didn't want that. Once the record company saw we had some substance and were not a one hit wonder. They got 100% behind us. ~ Christian Burns, #NFDB
631:And as she talks, I concentrate on spreading out my substance, making myself spongy to absorb the puffiness into myself, to absorb the pain radiating through her feet and legs and back. ~ Deborah Eisenberg, #NFDB
632:Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet . ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
633:How can I accept a limited definable self when I feel, in me, all possibilities?... I never feel the four walls around the substance of the self, the core. I feel only space. Illimitable space. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
634:I did not see sin”, says Julian of Norwich in her Revelations, “for I believe that it has no kind of substance, no share in being; nor can it be recognized except by the pain caused by it. ~ Kallistos Ware, #NFDB
635:Magic comprises the most profound contemplation of the most secret things, their nature, power, quality, substance, and virtues, as well as the knowledge of their whole nature. ~ Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, #NFDB
636:Some people just chase the glittery stuff and they have no substance to their life whatsoever. Actually all they really want is power. But they pretend they're interested in enlightenment. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
637:The condition of the United States in the post-postmodern, or post-post-irony period. It's what the country will become when there is nothing left but mediated images of its substance. ~ Davis Schneiderman, #NFDB
638:The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
639:You see, the form became more important than the substance, the oratory and the eloquence became things in and of themselves, and ultimately preaching became a form of entertainment. ~ D Martyn Lloyd Jones, #NFDB
640:Attempting to write an honest essay doesn't alter the multiplicity of my selves. What changes, if I take the time to stop and measure, is that my multi-selved identity acquires substance. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
641:How a man perceives substance dictates the amount of substance in a man. To know the depth of anyone's true substance, simply measure the weight of what consumes and excites their inner drive. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
642:I've been taking my time now between projects looking for stuff that has a little bit more substance, that isn't surface. Some of the films that I've done in the past really were surface. ~ Christian Slater, #NFDB
643:Metaphysics is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which it has. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
644:The game of negotiation takes place at two levels. At one level, negotiation addresses the substance; at another, it focuses—usually implicitly—on the procedure for dealing with the substance. ~ Roger Fisher, #NFDB
645:The Place Blanche, Paris, Life itself. One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
646:The power of monsters is, it is a way of giving almost tangible substance to fears, beliefs, things that aren't real. You can coalesce it and draw it, or describe it, and it's a monster. ~ Stephen R Bissette, #NFDB
647:There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind, and its infinite manifestation, for God is All in All. Spirit is immortal Truth; Matter is mortal error ~ Mary Baker Eddy, #NFDB
648:We men dream dreams, we work magic, we do good, we do evil. The dragons do not dream. They are dreams. They do not work magic: it is their substance, their being. They do not do; they are. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
649:Beware of those who are too focused with polishing and beautifying their outer shells. They lack true substance to understand that genuine beauty is reflected from the heart that resides inside. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
650:Enduring fame is promised only to those writers who can offer to successive generations a substance constantly renewed; for every generation arrives upon the scene with its own particular hunger. ~ Andre Gide, #NFDB
651:Indeed, in this ordinance, the whole of what Christianity means is expressed: one Lord Jesus Christ, incarnate, atoning, and triumphant as the sum and substance of the observance. Without ~ Thomas R Schreiner, #NFDB
652:Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which you see, and out of their substance will make other things and again other things... in order that the world may be ever new. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
653:Rules of responsible drug use, he thought.
Know your substance before you start.
Know your dose.
Safe, comfortable setting.
He shook his head. They'd struck out on all three of those. ~ Ramez Naam,#NFDB
654:Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
655:It's just me throwing myself at you,
romance as usual, us times us,
not lust but moxibustion,
a substance burning close
to the body as possible
without risk of immolation. ~ Alice Fulton,#NFDB
656:The movie's only serious criticism is reserved for Baker's television network, which doesn't think Americans care about Afghanistan - kind of hypocritical given this film's lack of substance. ~ David Edelstein, #NFDB
657:A word, after all, is a kind of magic. It locks the substance of a thing in sound or symbol, and affixes it to the ear, or paper, or stone. Words call the world into being. That's power indeed. ~ Kelly Barnhill, #NFDB
658:Beware when rhetoric becomes a substitute for substance. You always know that a person has a weak position when he tries to accomplish with the clever use of words what argument alone cannot do. ~ Gregory Koukl, #NFDB
659:Good and bad, and even the higher good that mysticism finds everywhere, are the reflections of our own emotions on other things, not part of the substance of things as they are in themselves. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
660:If he were any other man, I might have suspected him of substance abuse, of being coked up or something. But Barrons was too much a purist for that; his drugs were money, power, and control ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
661:The elevation of appearance over substance, of celebrity over character, of short term gains over lasting achievement displays a poverty of ambition. It distracts you from what's truly important. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
662:What is my true substance?
What will remain of me after my death?
Our life is as short as a raging fire:
flames the passer-by soon forgets,
ashes the wind blows away.
A man's life. ~ Omar Khayy m,#NFDB
663:Your mind is your life. It's your essence and your substance. It's the part of you that has always been and will always be. Its formations change constantly, which is what makes you always new. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
664:Like everybody else in the cocktail lounge, he was softening his brain with alcohol. This was a substance produced by a tiny creature called yeast. Yeast organisms ate sugar and excreted alcohol. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
665:Our works and our play. All our pleasures experienced as the pleasure of love. What could be better that? To feel in one's work the tender and flushed substance of one's dearest concern. ~ Mary Caroline Richards, #NFDB
666:The spirit is beyond pleasure and pain; it’s outside them. They are swings of opposites. The spiritual is in the here and now. It’s not pleasure nor is it pain. It is its own substance, its own kind. ~ Belsebuub, #NFDB
667:The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
668:True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind... ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
669:Belief is made up of the same non-substance of which we ourselves are composed. The test of any belief system, then, is the degree to which this same light is permitted to shine through. ~ Eric Micha el Leventhal, #NFDB
670:Readers and writers are united in their need for solitude, in their pursuit of substance in a time of ever-increasing evanescence: in their reach inward, via print, for a way out of loneliness. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
671:There are no composite characters or events in this book. I occasionally omitted people and events, but only when that omission had no impact on either the veracity or the substance of the story. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
672:And yet now that we were seventeen the substance of time itself no longer seemed fluid but had assumed a gluelike consistency and churned around us like a yellow cream in a confectioner's machine. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
673:At the beginning, the author's writing was like a selfie: a disposable plea for attention that was all about him and his life. But since he hadn't done much living, there wasn't much substance. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
674:Full circle from the tomb of the womb to the womb of the tomb we come, an ambiguous, enigmatical incursion into a world of solid matter that is soon to melt from us like the substance of a dream. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
675:I like to have songs with me that have substance. That's missing from a lot of today's music. You might hear a song with a catchy beat, but what's it about? It's not empowering or helping anyone. ~ Jennifer Hudson, #NFDB
676:It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
677:Psychological symptoms are God’s way of letting us know that something is wrong. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and compulsive behaviors are all symptoms of a deeper problem. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
678:There Mind, a splendid sun of vision’s rays,
Shaped substance by the glory of its thoughts
And moved amidst the grandeur of its dreams. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The House of the Spirit and the New Creation,#NFDB
679:Words enable us to transfer our thoughts from inside our own mind into the mind of another. They have the power to alter history, to describe the past, and to bring meaning and substance to the present. ~ Jim Rohn, #NFDB
680:I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
681:Matter is a formation of life that has no real existence apart from the informing universal spirit which gives it its energy and substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Psychology of Self-Perfection, #NFDB
682:People ask me what makes a good funeral, and I tell them the most important thing is your man in the casket. If you have a man of substance in there, you have the makings of a first-class funeral. ~ Cleveland Amory, #NFDB
683:The being of the universe is one and equally present in each individual, part or member of the universe, in such sort that the totality and each part make from the view-point of substance only one. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
684:The compelling thing about making art - or making anything, I suppose - is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid there, a thing, a substance in a world of substances. ~ Audrey Niffenegger, #NFDB
685:The sacred sense of beyond, of timelessness, of a world which had an eternal value and the substance of which was divine had been given back to me today by this friend of mine who taught me dancing. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
686:The universal nature out of the universal substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
687:Time isn’t a commodity, something you pass around like a cake. Time is the substance of life. When anyone asks you to give your time, they’re really asking for a chunk of your life. ~ Antoinette Bosco ~ M J DeMarco, #NFDB
688:Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance. ~ Giambattista Vico, #NFDB
689:My main aim has always been to do good quality films with roles that have some substance. With Power and Beauty there were loads of things that I liked about the movie, which made me opt for it. ~ Natasha Henstridge, #NFDB
690:But then all at once he wanted to have his own goods and money and to be his own master, and so he asked his father to give him his portion, and he left his home and went and wasted all his substance. ~ Johanna Spyri, #NFDB
691:He told her the flowers in her painting contained exactly the purple substance of the flowers on the desk in front of her [...] Let us open the window and see if your painting can entice the butterflies. ~ Sarah Hall, #NFDB
692:neurotransmitter should be a substance stored in neurons, released when they fire action potentials, and acting upon adjacent neurons or other cells (muscles, glia) to cause excitation or inhibition. ~ David J Linden, #NFDB
693:She felt high, as if she had consumed some inappropriate and presumably illegal substance. She focused her gaze on the street lamp outside the window and sat still while her brain worked at top speed. ~ Stieg Larsson, #NFDB
694:16 Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
695:Cottage cheese is one of our culture's most visible symbols of self-denial; marketed honestly, it would appear in dairy cases with warning labels: this substance is self-punitive; ingest with caution. ~ Caroline Knapp, #NFDB
696:If he says he has the pizzazz and the sizzle, I have the steak, and substance. I've made more money than he's made. I've made bigger deals than he's made, when he's got the complexion to get the protection. ~ Don King, #NFDB
697:In the year 1752 it was announced that the second of September would be followed by the fourteenth. The matter was merely one of wording, of course; time in its substance was not to undergo any change. ~ Emma Donoghue, #NFDB
698:Many attenders, lacking any understanding about the content or purposes of worship, assume that the routines and rituals that occur in worship services constitute the substance of worship. Consequently, ~ George Barna, #NFDB
699:Men of genius supply the substance of history, while the mass of men are but the critical filter, the limiting, slackening, passive force needed for the modification of ideas supplied by genius. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel, #NFDB
700:Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
701:As our bodies live upon the earth and find sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains. ~ Nicolas Malebranche, #NFDB
702:Life is a process, not a substance, and it is necessarily temporary. We are not the reason for the existence of the universe, but our ability for self-awareness and reflection makes us special within it. ~ Sean Carroll, #NFDB
703:People talk about talent as though it were some neutral substance that can be applied to anything. But talent is narrow and only functions with a very few subjects, which it is up to the writer to find. ~ Wilfrid Sheed, #NFDB
704:Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
705:Every corporeal substance, so far forth as it is corporeal, has a natural fitness for resting in every place where it may be situated by itself beyond the sphere of influence of a body cognate with it. ~ Johannes Kepler, #NFDB
706:Hold on to your dream. Don't let the people shake you from your dream. Don't let form become more important than the substance of your heart and mind. Don't let commerce determine what you do exclusively. ~ Avery Brooks, #NFDB
707:A man's character is the reality of himself; his reputation, the opinion others have formed about him; character resides in him, reputation in other people; that is the substance, this is the shadow. ~ Henry Ward Beecher, #NFDB
708:I think of all music as existing in the substance of the air itself. It is the composer's task to order and make sense of sound, in time and space, to communicate something about being alive through music. ~ Libby Larsen, #NFDB
709:This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to hidden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes. ~ Doris Lessing, #NFDB
710:True thusness is the substance of thought, and thought is the function of true thusness. There is no thought except that of true thusness. Thusness does not move, but its motion and function are inexhaustible. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
711:A hallmark of true expertise and insight is making a complex subject understandable. A hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is unnecessary complexity—a flurry of fluff masking an absence of substance. ~ Richard P Rumelt, #NFDB
712:Consider how quickly all things are dissolved and resolved: the bodies and substances themselves, into the matter and substance of the world: and their memories into the general age and time of the world. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
713:Divine Love is not merely a sublimation of human emotions; it is a different consciousness, with a different quality, movement and substance. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II, Divine Love, Psychic Love and Human Love, #NFDB
714:I’ve discovered the best things in life, those of true substance, involve the hardest-fought battles and the longest waits. But keep pressing on with your genuine heart desires until God brings them to pass. ~ John Herrick, #NFDB
715:They spoke, at length, about the realms “above” this one. Levels at which the progressing soul becomes at one with God—formless, independent of time and substance though still aware of personal identity. ~ Richard Matheson, #NFDB
716:..This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
717:Life is a process, not a substance, and it is necessarily temporary. We are not the reason for the existence of the universe, but our ability for self-awareness and reflection makes us special within it. This ~ Sean Carroll, #NFDB
718:The substance of every true and stable political organism is something resembling an Order, a Männerbünd in charge of the principle of the imperium, comprising men who see loyalty as the basis of their honor. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
719:Close to it was an aquarium tank filled with a thick, yellowish substance that could have been slug slime and at the bottom was a wrinkled grayish mass that could have been a human brain or possibly a meat-loaf. ~ David Wong, #NFDB
720:He was all show, and he had the conviction, as such people do, that show is the same as substance. He didn’t think he was fooling other people; he had fooled himself. He thought he saw what he thought we saw. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
721:Man's own youth is the world's youth; at least he feels as if it were, and imagines that the earth's granite substance is something not yet hardened, and which he can mould into whatever shape he likes. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
722:No creature hath the like resemblance to the divine nature, as light hath. He doth not only dwell in light, but he is light. Light is a pure, bright, clear, spiritual, unmixed substance. God is infinitely so. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
723:So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him, you swallowed him whole. Love was substance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
724:Surely, I find myself daydreaming, there is something, some substance already in common use, that women could drink after sex or at the end of the month, that would keep them unpregnant with no one the wiser. ~ Katha Pollitt, #NFDB
725:the most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange…The spice extends life… expands consciousness… gives them the ability to fold space…that is, travel to any part of the universe without moving. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
726:Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
727:At the next election he'll offer the British public an alternative that provides weight and substance and seriousness in a political debate that is, frankly, increasingly obsessed with modishness and flim-flam. ~ Paddy Ashdown, #NFDB
728:I never considered myself an artist. I aspire to be an artist, but I never thought I had the depth or substance or gift to be an artist. I do think I have some talent, but it doesn't go as far as being an artist. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
729:It's been obvious that [Republicans]'re doing everything they can to make [Obama] fail. And I hope, I hope - and I say this seriously - I hope that's based on substance and not the fact that he's African-American. ~ Harry Reid, #NFDB
730:Angelo is a brilliant jazz talent. His receptivity, seriousness, his ability to execute ideas simple or complex, combined with his love and feel for the substance of jazz reveal why he is an exceptional artist. ~ Mulgrew Miller, #NFDB
731:Hence as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a Community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the Administration of public affairs. ~ Samuel Adams, #NFDB
732:There be as many persons of a king, as there be petty constables in his kingdom. And so there are, or else he cannot be obeyed. But I never said that a king, and every one of his persons, are the same substance. ~ Thomas Hobbes, #NFDB
733:But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether they interpreted this as a name of a substance, of a quality, or of a relation. ~ J L Austin, #NFDB
734:Finally, since human beings are uniquely capable of producing materials not found in nature, environmental degradation may be due to the resultant intrusion into an ecosystem of a substance wholly foreign to it. ~ Barry Commoner, #NFDB
735:From where I stood it was a pose that collapsed many periods in her life into one: mother and lover, big sister, best friend, superstar and diplomat, billionaire and street kid, foolish girl and woman of substance. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
736:I'm calling for all responsible Americans to fight back and punish Pepsi for using a man who degrades women, who encourages substance abuse, and does all the things that hurt particularly the poor in our society. ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
737:Inherently, each one of us has the substance within to achieve whatever our goals and dreams define. What is missing from each of us is the training, education, knowledge and insight to utilize what we already have. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
738:Our feelings are formations, impermanent and without substance. We learn not to identify with ourselves with our feelings, not to consider them as a self, not to seek refuge in them, not to die because of them. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
739:Science, as well as technology, will in the near and in the farther future increasingly turn from problems of intensity, substance, and energy, to problems of structure, organization, information, and control. ~ John von Neumann, #NFDB
740:So the film was a kind of lie, because by existing it said: 'Observe the lengths we'll go to for your security. We'll even make you a movie about it.' Style instead of substance, the image instead of the reality ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
741:Then know, that I have little wealth to lose. A man I am, crossed with adversity; My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, You take the sum and substance that I have. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
742:There's nothing to Obama - nothing but platitudes. When it's time to get to the substance, we get contradictions and confusions. We don't think that he knows what he's talking about because it's true: He doesn't. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
743:Thus the radio elements formed strange and cruel families in which each member was created by spontaneous transformation of the mother substance: radium was a "descendant" of uranium, polonium a descendant of radium. ~ Eve Curie, #NFDB
744:When the sage has recognised impermanence, subjection to grief and unreality of substance as the three characteristic qualities of this world, how can his heart own attachment to the things of this world? ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king, #NFDB
745:Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole; and everything formal (causal) is very soon taken back into the universal reason; and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
746:His inconsistency. His inability to finish anything. His sudden terrifying feelings that nothing he did mattered. His realizations that what went on in the outside world had more substance than anything in his life. ~ Lydia Davis, #NFDB
747:Our gifts are very pleasant to Him. He loves to see us lay our time, our talents, our substance on the altar not for the value of what we give, but for the sake of the motive from which the gift springs. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
748:Style tells you a lot more about the truth than substance, because it comes at the truth in an oblique way, it comes in on a slant, it doesn't tell you what it is. It's unexpected and it makes you laugh and think. ~ Robert Benton, #NFDB
749:You see, it functions this way: Substance D, in fact all addictive dope, but Substance D most of all, interacts with the catecholamines in such a fashion that involvement is locked in place at a subcellular level. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
750:A hallmark of true expertise and insight is making a complex subject understandable. A hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is unnecessary complexity—a flurry of fluff masking an absence of substance. FAILURE ~ Richard P Rumelt, #NFDB
751:Jealousy, and local policy mix too much in all our public councils for the good government of the Union. In a words, the confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance . . . . ~ George Washington, #NFDB
752:When sunlight falls on a crystal, lights of all colors of the rainbow appear; yet they have no substance that you can grasp. Likewise, all thoughts in their infinite variety are utterly without substance. ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, #NFDB
753:You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for, if you are honest, you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one. ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
754:Aside from velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe. You can't see it or touch it, yet a plumber can charge you upwards of seventy-five dollars per hour for it, without necessarily fixing anything. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
755:I am like the water that runs over me, immune to permanence, recycling endlessly. I am water; I am life. The form may change, but the substance stays the same. Strike me down and I will rise again. Vincit qui patitur. ~ Rick Yancey, #NFDB
756:I do think we should be focused on substance and record. If you want a candidate who opposes amnesty, who opposes citizenship for the 12 million people here illegally, I'm the only candidate in the race who opposes that. ~ Ted Cruz, #NFDB
757:Nor can they understand why a totally useless substance like gold should now, all over the world, be considered far more important than human beings, who gave it such value as it has, purely for their own convenience. ~ Thomas More, #NFDB
758:The books in the tote bag banged against her side as she pushed her bike, bringing her back to the present. The weight of the books grounded her, giving her careening emotions purchase with their heft and substance. ~ Jenn McKinlay, #NFDB
759:The moon... is a mass, akin to the mass of the earth, attracts the waters by a magnetic force, not because they are liquid, but because they possess earthy substance, and so share in the movements of a heavy body. ~ Johannes Kepler, #NFDB
760:The substance of story is the gap that splits open between what a human being expects to happen when he takes an action and what really does happen; the rift between expectation and result, probability and necessity. ~ Robert McKee, #NFDB
761:I do not deny the existence of material substance merely because I have no notion of it, but because the notion of it is inconsistent, or in other words, because it is repugnant that there should be a notion of it. ~ George Berkeley, #NFDB
762:I like clever songs. I like songs that make people think and I try to have substance in all my records, even with 'Sweet Dreams' how it was a club record and it was up tempo, but it was melodic and it was, like, lyrical. ~ Rico Love, #NFDB
763:I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
764:People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it. ~ Bernard de Mandeville, #NFDB
765:Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don't know what it is. Well I know. It's apathy. ~ David Wong, #NFDB
766:The whole world seemed a maze of shifting mirrors in which I wandered alone, looking always and frenziedly for the exit back into my real life, where people had substance, did as they said they would, and were whole. ~ Claire Messud, #NFDB
767:To create and to annihilate material substance, cause it to aggregate in forms according to his desire, would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man's mind, his most complete triumph over the physical world. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
768:Transient bodies are only subject to destruction through their substance and not through their form, nor can the essence of their form be destroyed; in this respect they are permanent. ~ Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), #NFDB
769:When I see an object there is no will; when its sensations are carried to the brain, there comes the reaction, which says "Do this", or "Do not do this", and this state of the ego-substance is what is called will ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
770:But as the years passed, Ned's silence grew and grew. It pressed upon his face and his body. It leaked into the house and spread outward into the yard. His silence had weight. It had substance and presence and teeth. ~ Kelly Barnhill, #NFDB
771:Only through the unification of time and space is there matter, i.e. the possibility of simultaneity, and through that, duration, and again through these, the persistence of substance during alteration of state. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, #NFDB
772:She regained the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of Jane Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
773:She was adamant that any organisation that labelled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity. ~ Samantha Shannon, #NFDB
774:Addiction is a condition in which a person engages in use of a substance or in a behavior for which the rewarding effects provide a compelling incentive to repeatedly pursue the behavior despite detrimental consequences. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
775:Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you: that God and the Devil are one, the majesty coeternal, not two uncreated but one uncreated, and the Natives neither confounded the persons nor divided the substance. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
776:...as if he had turned into one of those sarcophagi lined with bristling nails. He wanted to flee himself, unshackle himself from the excruciating substance he was made of, but he was trapped inside the martyred flesh. ~ F lix J Palma, #NFDB
777:Character issues such as drug abuse are not exclusive to Detroit Public Schools. My reference to substance abuse, not intended to focus on any particular school district, was simply used to illustrate this position. ~ Kwame Kilpatrick, #NFDB
778:Esoteric science premises the existence of the Great Unmanifest, which may be conceived as a sea of limitless but latent force which underlies all things and whence all things derive their substance and draw their life. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
779:If the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he had his substance from nothing. ~ Arius, #NFDB
780:Platitudes might satisfy for a short time, father—but soon or late, the people will realize they are being fed form without substance. What I tell them must be the truth, and I must believe it, and I must hold to it. ~ Mercedes Lackey, #NFDB
781:Read the inscription," he said. I opened the book. On the flyleaf it said: "To Hilda, so that on the day we part the substance of my hopes for the future and my predestined struggle will remain with you. Ernesto 20-1-55. ~ Hilda Gadea, #NFDB
782:There are certainly laws and elements that make a film more accessible to mainstream audiences. If you've got Tom Cruise as a strongman, I'm sure it would have larger audiences, but it wouldn't have the same substance. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
783:There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow--the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
784:In reality, which means in our actual experience, all experience is one seamless substance. The duality between the inside self and the outside object, world or other is never actually experienced. It is always imagined. ~ Rupert Spira, #NFDB
785:Someday the old shack we call the world will fall apart. How, we don’t know, and we don’t really care either. Since nothing has real substance, and life is a twirl in the void, its beginning and its end are meaningless. ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
786:Elle, la voleuse de livres dépourvue de mots. Mais croyez-moi, les mots allaient venir et, lorsqu’ils arriveraient, Liesel les prendrait dans sa main, comme les nuages, et elle en exprimerait la substance, comme la pluie. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
787:Enron was becoming a virtual cult of creativity, often placing swagger over substance. New ideas were celebrated for their newness, for their potential; tried and true businesses like the pipelines were almost derided. ~ Kurt Eichenwald, #NFDB
788:I knew that this was what I wanted to talk about on stage. There was no point being coy about it, or pretending that I wasn't gay. That was the substance of my whole act. If you took that away, there would be nothing left ~ Julian Clary, #NFDB
789:Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance. -Doc ~ Bryce Courtenay, #NFDB
790:Now many such things may be done without intitling the people to rise in arms. A gross, flagrant, and palpable abuse no doubt will do it, as if they should be required to pay a tax equal to half or third of their substance. ~ Adam Smith, #NFDB
791:Put that down in capital letters—that the Holy Spirit is not only a Being having another mode of existence, but He is Himself a Person, with all the qualities and powers of personality. He is not matter, but He is substance. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
792:The attraction of horror is a mental, or even an intellectual, excitement, but the fascination of the repulsive, so noticeable incontemporary writing, can spring openly from some rotted substance within our civilization. ~ Ellen Glasgow, #NFDB
793:...because he believed that if you wanted to get rid of a hole, you filled it. He had not realized at the time that there were all sorts of filler that took up space, but had no substance. That made you feel just as empty. ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
794:He felt full of a dense and sour substance that was blocking his chest, and it wasn't grief. After all those years, life now seemed like no more than a trap, a maze, not even a maze, just a room that was all walls, no door. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
795:People may claim to be “free,” yet they cannot control themselves from gluttony in the presence of food or from illicit sexual relations when the opportunity presents itself. Such a notion of freedom is devoid of substance. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
796:The criminalization of marijuana did not prevent marijuana from becoming the most widely used illegal substance in the United States and many other countries. But it did result in extensive costs and negative consequences. ~ George Soros, #NFDB
797:To explain is to disbelieve. Every philosophy is a diplomacy dressed up as eternity..... Like diplomacy, it has no real substance, existing not in its own right but completely and absolutely on behalf of some objective. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
798:What, but the rapacity of the only men who exercised their reason, the priests, secured such vast property to the church, when a man gave his perishable substance to save himself from the dark torments of purgatory. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft, #NFDB
799:Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old. ~ Lewis H Lapham, #NFDB
800:The man of Truth is beyond good and evil,” intoned a voice that was not a voice. “The man of Truth has ridden to All-Is-One. The man of Truth has learnt that Illusion is the only reality, and that substance is an impostor. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
801:The real question is why are millions of people so unhappy, so bored, so unfulfilled, that they are willing to drink, snort, inject or inhale any substance that might blot out reality and give them a bit of temporary relief. ~ Ann Landers, #NFDB
802:There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
803:The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
804:we may have a better reflection of ourselves in the mirror depending on how thick the opaque substance behind it is; the lighter the substance, the poorer the image; the thicker the substance,the better the image. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
805:We ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, #NFDB
806:A quote of Jung's is just really perfect, when he says, "My work is one of taking the fixed thought forms of world religions and melting them down and pouring this melted substance into the moulds of individual experience." ~ Monika Wikman, #NFDB
807:Call to mind the whole of Substance of which you have a very small portion, and the whole of time whereof a small hair's breadth has been determined for you, and of the chain of causation whereof you are how small a link. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
808:Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live idle upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depth of misery. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
809:In Stalin each [Soviet bureaucrat] easily finds himself. But Stalin also finds in each one a small part of his own spirit. Stalin is the personification of the bureaucracy. That is the substance of his political personality. ~ Leon Trotsky, #NFDB
810:Intelligence is a harder gift. For this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it, and maybe toward the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow, whereas intelligence is the substance.
-Doc ~ Bryce Courtenay,#NFDB
811:She closes her eyes but can't fall to sleep, and so instead she conjures up again the substance of the dream...Awake it doesn't take, though; it feels like someone else's life and she like a voyeur, watching from the outside. ~ Paul Murray, #NFDB
812:The real superpower of meditation is not just to manage your ego more mindfully but to see that the ego itself has no actual substance. Close your eyes and look for it, and you won’t find any “self” you can put your finger on. ~ Dan Harris, #NFDB
813:What the philosophers once knew as life has become the sphere of private existence and now of mere consumption, dragged along as an appendage of the process of material production, without autonomy or substance of its own. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
814:Indefinite attitudes to the future explain what’s most dysfunctional in our world today. Process trumps substance: when people lack concrete plans to carry out, they use formal rules to assemble a portfolio of various options. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
815:Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
816:Whites who otherwise were able to tolerate a black president, Obama, because on certain issues he appealed to them on substance, Trump was able to reach down into some of those same people and pull out this racism inside them. ~ Allan Nairn, #NFDB
817:He was never his own best friend, Alexander. On the battlefield, he was solid, calm, and brave, but afterwards, he was like a boy after his first girl-all bragging and no substance. How could the god become so very human? ~ Christian Cameron, #NFDB
818:…it's occurred to her that there are millions, billions, of other men and women in the world who wake up early in their separate beds, greedy for the substance of their own lives, but obliged every day to reinvent themselves. ~ Carol Shields, #NFDB
819:Oh hell, these guys,” Milo scoffed. “The pretty ones. No substance, just coin and cock. What woman wants coin and cock?” The Jester laughed at the end of the line. “All of them. That’s like asking what man wants wine and tits. ~ Jenna Moreci, #NFDB
820:pulling a great substance from a higher height whilst leaning on a slippery ground with the mentality of having the substance whilst standing is a thought of fantasy. You may only result in falling with the substance ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
821:The only requirement of a symbol is that it have substance underneath: The first thing to do is to try to establish the substance. The style comes after the substance. Only then can the style help the substance, and vice versa. ~ Wally Olins, #NFDB
822:There will never be rebellion here. In Richmond and Williamsburg there has been talk. Jefferson isn’t reliable and Patrick Henry is a born troublemaker of no substance whatever. No, sir, Virginia stands fast with the king. ~ James A Michener, #NFDB
823:will secrete insulin in response to the mere taste of a sweet substance, and it doesn’t matter whether it is sugar or a no-calorie sugar substitute. The perceived taste of sweetness is sufficient to stimulate insulin secretion. ~ Gary Taubes, #NFDB
824:Far from creating a new formalism, what these can yield is something far transcending surface values since they not only embody form as beauty, but also form in which intuitions or ideas or conjectures have taken visible substance. ~ Max Bill, #NFDB
825:He who meditates on God for many days has substance in him, has divine power in him. Further, he who sings well, plays well on a musical instrument, or has mastered anyone art, has in him real substance and the power of God. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #NFDB
826:I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, directly. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained. ~ Washington Allston, #NFDB
827:I see myself as a traditionalist. I like traditional things. I like things of substance and value that have been proven. Conceptually, as the songs started to come together, I followed that lead, which is the language I work in. ~ Jakob Dylan, #NFDB
828:it was a passion nether of the mind nor of the flesh; rather, it was a force tha comprehended them both, as if they were but the matter of love, its specific substance. To a woman or to a poem, it said simply: Look! I am alive! ~ John Williams, #NFDB
829:I wanted to create a kind of substance by means of brush-work. But that is the kind of discovery which one makes gradually... Thus it was that I subsequently began to introduce sand, sawdust and metal filings into my pictures. ~ Georges Braque, #NFDB
830:Psychology is as important as substance. If you treat people with respect, they will go out of their way to accommodate you. If you treat them in a patronizing way, they will go out of their way to make your life difficult. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei, #NFDB
831:Roger Bacon held that three classes of substance were capable of magic: the herbal, the mineral, and the verbal. With their leaves of fiber, their inks of copperas and soot, and their words, books are an amalgam of the three. ~ Matthew Battles, #NFDB
832:We should not, therefore, be afraid of testing others--or of being tested ourselves. It is only by testing, or being tested, that we understand whether the substance or the person is as it appears to be or is merely masquerading. ~ Sandra Byrd, #NFDB
833:We sleep, allowing gravity to hold us, allowing Earth - our larger body - to recalibrate our neurons, composting the keen encounters of our waking hours , stirring them back, as dreams, into the sleeping substance of our muscles. ~ David Abram, #NFDB
834:Except God no substance can be granted or conceived. .. Everything, I say, is in God, and all things which are made, are made by the laws of the infinite nature of God, and necessarily follows from the necessity of his essence. ~ Baruch Spinoza, #NFDB
835:If you go to Florence, it has all surface beauty, but like Venice, it's simply a museum of Renaissance times. Los Angeles is raw, uncouth and bizarre, but it's a place of substance. It has more new horizons than any other place. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
836:In truth, the legitimate contention is, not of one age or school of literary art against another, but of all successive schools alike, against the stupidity which is dead to the substance, and the vulgarity which is dead to form. ~ Walter Pater, #NFDB
837:It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
838:The golden light of metaphor, which is the intelligence of poetry, was implicit in alchemical study. To change, magically, one substance into another, more valuable one is the ancient function of metaphor, as it was of alchemy. ~ Patricia Hampl, #NFDB
839:The Labor Party has always - always been praised as leaders. In fact, there's probably more books written about ALP leaders and the ALP people than the Libs or anyone else in Australian's history, but there was substance to it. ~ Warren Mundine, #NFDB
840:Beauty is a reflection on the genetic soup we got served. It says nothing about your character or personality. Pretty is just that. Pretty. Substance is what matters. Clichéd as it sounds, it really is what’s inside that counts. ~ Hailey Edwards, #NFDB
841:“Gossamer threads of life hold me, perched between Earth and Sky, Weaving the web, Dreaming the dream, Through the two worlds I will fly. With you as my muse, Mother, I create the substance of dreams." ~ 13 Original Clan Mothers#dreams #together, #NFDB
842:I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them. ~ Bernie Mac, #NFDB
843:King James' final instructions to the translators were in substance as follows: Where the new translations agree with accepted tradition, use them; where they do not, conform to the popular tradition. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
844:She was pretty sure Sample #17 had been some Lancre Blue Vein, which had reacted vigorously with the acid, blown a small hole in the ceiling and covered half the work-bench with a dark green substance that was setting like tar. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
845:The experience you’ve had may be unwanted, may amount to nothing but damage and waste, but experience has substance, is factual, authoritative, lives on in your past and affects your present, whatever you attempt to do about it. ~ A S A Harrison, #NFDB
846:The well-known fact that the form of a specific substance, e.g. water, and hence its properties can alter without a change in composition was disposed of by the formal view that a physical, not a chemical, process was involved. ~ Wilhelm Ostwald, #NFDB
847:Women who focus on style over substance usually find themselves in a big fucking hole, with other men who want to fuck the hole. Oh so smooth, and none sophistacted. Because, you know, how sophisticated can hole-fucking really be ~ Emilie Autumn, #NFDB
848:Thoughts of themselves have no substance; let them arise and pass away unheeded. Thoughts will not take form of themselves, unless they are grasped by the attention; if they are ignored, there will be no appearing and no disappearing. ~ Asvaghosa, #NFDB
849:We frequently define an acid or a base as a substance whose aqueous solution gives, respectively, a higher concentration of hydrogen ion or of hydroxide ion than that furnished by pure water. This is a very one sided definition. ~ Gilbert N Lewis, #NFDB
850:In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend. ~ Alan Guth, #NFDB
851:O God, the Eternal All, help me to know that all things are shadows, but Thou art substance, all things are quicksands, but Thou art mountain, all things are shifting, but Thou art anchor, all things are ignorance, but Thou art wisdom. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
852:The history of institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that preserves them, and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has passed away. ~ Lord Acton, #NFDB
853:When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, #NFDB
854:If anyone should doubt whether the electrical matter passes through the substance of bodies, or only over along their surfaces, a shock from an electrified large glass jar, taken through his own body, will probably convince him. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
855:It is not, then, in the content or substance of folly that its difference from truth lies, but in where it comes from. It comes not from 'the wise man's mouth' but from the mouth of the subject assumed not to know and speak the truth. ~ J M Coetzee, #NFDB
856:Moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable, reactions to what life has dealt. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
857:There is no such thing as absolute void or real nullity and what we call by that name is simply something beyond the grasp of our sense, our mind or our most subtle consciousness. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Ascending Series of Substance, #NFDB
858:The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you. ~ Thomas Chalmers, Lectures on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans vol. 1 (1837) pp. 29-30, #NFDB
859:I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance - You, O God - towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matters. ~ Saint Augustine, #NFDB
860:In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. ~ Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship (1840), The Hero as a Man of Letters., #NFDB
861:[P]ride has no intrinsic substance, being no more than the name given to the soul devouring itself. When that loathsome perversion of love has borne its fruit, it has another, more meaningful and weightier name. We call it hatred. ~ Georges Bernanos, #NFDB
862:Have you told Julia this about Sebastian?”
“The substance of it; not quite as I told you. She never loved him, you know, as we do.”
“Do.” The word reproached me; there was no past tense in Cordelia’s verb “to love. ~ Evelyn Waugh,#NFDB
863:I know she re-entered her prison with pain, with reluctance, with a moan and a long shiver. The divorced mates, Spirit and Substance, were hard to re-unite: they greeted each other, not in an embrace, but a racking sort of struggle. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
864:It is the friction of two spiritual things, of tradition and invention, or of substance and symbol, from which the mind takes fire. The creeds condemned as complex have something like the secret of sex; they can breed thoughts. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
865:The shadow of my sorrow. Let's see, 'tis very true. My griefs lie all within and these external manners of laments are mere shadows to the unseen grief which swells with silence in the tortured soul.
There lies the substance. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
866:If you can make a good picture that actually has some substance, that's doubly good nowadays 'cause most everybody else is trying to address how many CGI plates we're gonna do, what little being is gonna come in from another asteroid. ~ Clint Eastwood, #NFDB
867:It's very difficult to break into motion pictures, but it's oddly easier for directors today because of independent films and cable, who have inherited for the most part those films of substance that the studios are reluctant to finance. ~ Mark Rydell, #NFDB
868:The Lord came to send fire upon the earth (cf. Lk. 12:49), and through participation in this fire He makes divine not just the human substance which He assumed for our sake, but every person who is found worthy of communion with Him. ~ Gregory Palamas, #NFDB
869:At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
870:Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
871:Everyone had very uncreased necks, which meant no prolonged inclining of the head, which meant no reading. Linda's own neck looked like a finger, but she reassured herself that the creases were like tree rings marking her substance. ~ Tony Tulathimutte, #NFDB
872:Love feels like this fog. It slinks in from some hidden place and silently overtakes me. It seems so dense, but when I reach into it, there’s nothing of substance. Then, before too long, it simply vanishes. That’s my perception of love. ~ Alex Z Moores, #NFDB
873:People tend to think of the soul as a man-shaped thing composed of a vague ghostlike substance. In reality it’s more like some God-almighty haunted house, in which the rooms are constantly shifting, moving, and reconfiguring themselves. ~ Damien Echols, #NFDB
874:qing·hao·su n. a terpene-based anti-malarial substance used in Chinese medicine. The drug is obtained from Artemisia annua, family Compositae. 1970s: from Chinese , from , denoting a medicinal plant of the genus Artemisia. ~ Oxford University Press, #NFDB
875:The seals I told you about in the book. They were forged from iron. God created a substance toxic to anything not of earth and used it to make the seals. He also placed iron in the blood of man to help prevent evil from inhabiting us. ~ Iain Rob Wright, #NFDB
876:This land was brought up from the depths of the ocean by a diver,” said the fire. “It was spun from its own substance by a spider. It was shat by a raven. It is the body of a fallen father, whose bones are mountains, whose eyes are lakes. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
877:To see through the illusion of duality, remember that fear and darkness have no substance in themselves, for they do not indicate the presence of a second universal force, but are only names given to the one Light unperceived. ~ Eric Micha el Leventhal, #NFDB
878:But work that's got real substance does make people feel, "There's someone else out there who relates to my experience, or who just helped me understand my own experience a little bit better." And I think that's still got enormous value. ~ Edward Norton, #NFDB
879:I'm a man of some intelligence. I've had some education, passed the bar, practiced law. I've been a teacher and I deal with men of substance, statesman, business leaders, the clergy... So why do I spend my time arguing with Dizzy Dean? ~ Branch Rickey, #NFDB
880:We are pre-disposed for fantasy, there is a natural impulse for human beings to want to get off their heads or out of their heads in something in a substance or a drink or an idea or a religion which will comfort them and make life exciting. ~ Tom Baker, #NFDB
881:With the arrival of the new comes the need to overcome fascination with novelty in order to approach substance and sophistication - a sophistication born of subtlety and depth of perception, not complexity and perceived virtuosity. ~ John Paul Caponigro, #NFDB
882:It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change. Of course people mutilate and modify, but these are fallen powers, and to change something you do not understand is the true nature of evil. ~ Jeanette Winterson, #NFDB
883:Oneness unknown to us dwells in these millions of figures and faces,
Wars with itself in our battles, loves in our clinging embraces,
Inly the self and the substance of things and their cause and their mover ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ahana,#NFDB
884:Spi·no·za Baruch (or Benedict) de (1632-77), Dutch philosopher. Spinoza espoused a pantheistic system, seeing “God or nature” as a single infinite substance, with mind and matter being two incommensurable ways of conceiving the one reality. ~ Erin McKean, #NFDB
885:Analysis should release an experience that grips us or falls upon us as from above, an experience that has substance and body such as those things which occurred to the ancients. If I were going to symbolize it I would choose the Annunciation. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
886:I puzzle over the onionskin, trying to spill my heart onto the page. But I can only come up with the same words, in the same order, and hope the depth of feeling beneath them gives them weight and substance. I love you. I miss you. ~ Christina Baker Kline, #NFDB
887:Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
888:My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance? ~ Colin Firth, #NFDB
889:The gentlest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world. That which has no substance enters where there is no space. This shows the value of non-action. Teaching without words, performing without actions: that is the Master's way. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
890:Why should we try for space travel? It cannot be a substance of any kind that can be expected to pay. It can only be something intangible, not involving haulage, which is at the same time more valuable. There is something like that: Knowledge. ~ Willy Ley, #NFDB
891:CHAPTER 92 Ambergris Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
892:Just as a chemist "isolates" a substance from contaminations that distort his view of its nature and effects, so the work of art purifies significant appearance. It presents abstract themes in their generality, but not reduced to diagrams. ~ Rudolf Arnheim, #NFDB
893:Life is not a substance, like water or rock; it’s a process, like fire or a wave crashing on the shore. It’s a process that begins, lasts for a while, and ultimately ends. Long or short, our moments are brief against the expanse of eternity. ~ Sean Carroll, #NFDB
894:Style. People talk about it being stylish and beautiful, that's at the service of the story. Style for me means nothing without substance and there are moments and things about the film that are stylish but hopefully at the service of the story. ~ Tom Ford, #NFDB
895:The government of the Union, then, ... is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit. ~ John Marshall, #NFDB
896:The mind is constantly involved in thinking, in judging, in evaluating. Its whole function seems to be to keep you involved in thoughts, which are nothing but soap bubbles - or perhaps soap bubbles have more substance to them than your thoughts. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
897:All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
898:Faith is not a question of basking in the certainty that there is a God and that God is taking care of us. Many of us are never granted this kind of assurance. Certitude is not the real substance of faith. Faith is a way of seeing things. ~ Ronald Rolheiser, #NFDB
899:I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance – You oh God – towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo, #NFDB
900:Many years ago it was taught that plants and animals were composed of different materials: plants, of a chemical substance of three elements,- carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; animals of one of four elements, nitrogen being added to the other three. ~ Asa Gray, #NFDB
901:Our words are, as a general rule, filled by the people to whom we address them with a meaning which those people derive from their own substance, a meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words when we uttered them. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
902:...there are those who aim at living the life of the entire universe - everything, men, animals, trees, stars, we are all one, we are all one substance involved in the same terrible struggle. What struggle?... Turning matter into spirit. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis, #NFDB
903:There was no outlet, my fear was so deep and tangible I couldn't scream. It felt like an actual substance that enveloped my body, my brain, my very being, I receded further and further within myself, a dark hole, my entire body a taut muscle. ~ James Morris, #NFDB
904:The well-meaning people who talk of education as if it were a substance distributable by coupon in large or small quantities never exhibit any understanding of the truth that you cannot teach anybody anything that he does not want to learn. ~ George Sampson, #NFDB
905:Faith and reason are not, as many seem to be arguing today, mutually exclusive. They never have been. The letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament defines faith as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen. ~ Francis S Collins, #NFDB
906:Faith and reason are not, as many seem to be arguing today, mutually exclusive. They never have been. The letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament defines faith as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the things not seen. ~ Francis S Collins, #NFDB
907:He screamed.
Mmm?' inquired the gentleman.
I...I would never presume to interrupt you, sir. But the ground appears to be swallowing me up.'
It is a bog,' said the gentleman, helpfully.
It is certainly a most terrifying substance. ~ Susanna Clarke,#NFDB
908:Let's hope brands recognize that the true power of this technology is not its reach but its ability to communicate substance that adds meaning to our lives. Otherwise, brands will be investing in technology that consumers simply won't buy. ~ Simon Mainwaring, #NFDB
909:Love is not enough. Nor are attentiveness, romantic feelings, a charming personality, great competencies and skills, or promises to change. You need substance underneath the topping. Don’t sell yourself short. Character always wins over time. ~ John Townsend, #NFDB
910:Since hydrogen is a constituent of most of our electrolytic solvents, the definition of an acid or base as a substance which gives up or takes up hydrogen ion would be more general than the one we used before, but it would not be universal. ~ Gilbert N Lewis, #NFDB
911:Think of the universal substance, of which thou has a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
912:but to say that there is in every being
a mixture of act and potency comes back to the same thing in the
end, for act is that in him by which he participates in essence, and
potency is that in him by which he participates in substance ~ Ren Gu non,#NFDB
913:In this new world, which seems made to lead not to a beautiful book but to a gallery of Instagram selfies, we collect ourselves, getting high on narcissism repeated ad infinitum, and we reign over a world nearly stripped of its substance. ~ Bernard Henri L vy, #NFDB
914:Oil is also essential for military operations. No other substance, no other raw material, is so vital for the prosecution of warfare, than petroleum. And the United States being the world's only global power, is totally dependent on petroleum. ~ Michael Klare, #NFDB
915:There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind, and its infinite manifestation, for God is All in All. Spirit is immortal Truth; Matter is mortal error. ~ Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, Chapter XIV. Ed. 1906, p. 468, #NFDB
916:For it has been said, all that a man hath will he give for his life; and while all contribute of their substance the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then is due to the soldier. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
917:Mari was what was known as an underachiever, which even an underachiever knew was sociology code for "overfailer." She was famous in the Lore for the simple fact that one day she might be worth being famous. All hype-no substance. That was Mari. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
918:The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
919:At Edinburgh, in 1557, they entered into "ane Godlie Band," vowing that "we, by His grace, shall, with all diligence, continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives to maintain, set forward and establish the most blessed Word of God. ~ Various, #NFDB
920:Beauty and happiness and life are all the same and they are pervasive, unattached and abstract and they are our only concern. They are immeasurable, completely lacking in substance. They are perfect and sublime. This is the subject matter of art. ~ Agnes Martin, #NFDB
921:Whereas traditional reductionism sought to find the commonality underlying diversity in reference to a shared substance, such as material atoms, contemporary systems theory seeks to find common features in terms of shared aspects of organization. ~ Ervin Laszlo, #NFDB
922:Can we have a conversation about the substance? That's what I welcome. We're happy to have those conversations if there are places where people think there can be improvements. We want competition in the system, so let's talk about that. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell, #NFDB
923:Demand the truth. Tell the truth. Live the truth,” he would say. “If there is no truth, there is no trust. If there is no trust, there is no relationship. If there is no relationship, there is no value or substance to what you are doing.” The ~ Brett Bartholomew, #NFDB
924:Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time—that is the basic message. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
925:We suffer but little from suffering itself; but from the manner wherein we accept it overwhelming sorrow may spring.
We are wrong in believing that it comes from without. For indeed we create it within us, out of our very substance. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck,#NFDB
926:I can’t think of anybody…who knows the sum and substance of what I know and feel and cry about in my secret self all the time when I don’t feel strong, the sorrows of time and personality, and can therefore on all levels make it all the way with me ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
927:It is simply that if you are to throw over an old order, you must be sure that you can offer something of substance to replace it." (Просто, якщо вже ви зібрались скидати старий порядок, мусите бути певні, що у вас є щось вагоме, щобзамінити його.") ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
928:Q: The Mother can know our thoughts, but can she know also the exact words in the thoughts?A: If the mind of the person is very clear, yes; otherwise it may be only the substance that comes or a part of the thought or some general idea. ~ Sri Aurobindo, 19-5-1933, #NFDB
929:And for a dreamer of words, what calm there is in the word round. How peacefully it makes one's mouth, lips, and the being of breath become round. Because this too should be spoken by a philosopher who believes in the poetic substance of speech. ~ Gaston Bachelard, #NFDB
930:In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt. ~ Sherwood Anderson, #NFDB
931:Through the eclipse of large areas of the self, by repression and inhibition as well as by idealization and externalization, the individual loses sight of himself; he feels, if he does not actually become, like a shadow without weight and substance. ~ Karen Horney, #NFDB
932:As applied to substance abuse, the cognitive approach helps individuals
to come to grips with the problems leading to emotional distress
and to gain a broader perspective on their reliance on drugs for
pleasure and/or relief from discomfort. ~ Aaron T Beck,#NFDB
933:I can't think of anybody...who knows the sum and substance of what I know and feel and cry about in my secret self all the time when I don't feel strong, the sorrows of time and personality, and can therefore on all levels make it all the way with me ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
934:Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the roads. ~ Andre Breton, #NFDB
935:Mythology was not about theology, in the modern sense, but about human experience. People thought that gods, humans, animals and nature were inextricably bound up together, subject to the same laws, and composed of the same divine substance. There ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
936:The French fried potato has become an inescapable horror in almost every public eating place in the country. 'French fries', say the menus, but they are not French fries any longer. They are a furry-textured substance with the taste of plastic wood. ~ Russell Baker, #NFDB
937:They got drunk and high on a regular basis, but this is a vestige of youth that you either quit while you're young or you become an addict if you don't die.
If you are the Old Guy In The Punk House, move out. You have a substance abuse problem. ~ Bucky Sinister,#NFDB
938:The moral? That life can be a stranger substance than a cliche life, that goldfinches should occasionally do things differently from their parents, and that there are persuasive reasons for calling a loved one Plouplou, Missou, or poor little wolf. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
939:Martin Luther King would celebrate the symbolic status (of having a black president), but he would examine what the real substance was. And if he saw that poor and working people were not at the center of public policy, he would be deeply, deeply upset. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
940:The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor, #NFDB
941:When a heart breaks a substance spills out like cement and pours through the bloodstream, hardening everything. In time, I know my heart will mend and the rock inside will crack and crumble away. But for now I’m as solid as a column. And alone I stand. ~ Sarah Noffke, #NFDB
942:Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,--indeed, to exist at all,--must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any human institution, else it would be the absurdest thing in the world,--an acknowledged cheat. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
943:The actuality of these spiritual qualities is thus imprisoned, though their potentiality be not quite destroyed; and thus a crass, extended, impenetrable, passive, divisible, unintelligent substance is generated, which we call matter.Cheyn.Phil. Prin. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
944:There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well as substance, poetry; and a volume which should contain the condensed wisdom of mankind need not have one rhythmless line. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
945:Up until a little under three weeks ago, I used to believe that fate was a word that the hopeless used to describe random chance. That fate was just a coward's way of hoping for the future or explaining the past. It didn't have any substance or meaning. ~ Krista Lakes, #NFDB
946:We ought to cherish the body. Our body's substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manicheans imagine, but from God. And therefore, we ought to cherish the body by the friendship of love, by which we love God. ~ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (1265–1274), #NFDB
947:We use committees for all the ulterior purposes for which they might have been designed: diffusion of executive responsibility, plausible deniability, misdirection, providing the appearance of activity without the substance, and protecting the guilty. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
948:Seeing that he owns absolutely nothing to ‘repay’ his debt, ‘his own consciousness’ of the fact ‘that he is himself the very substance’ of debt, so must he ‘repay’ with himself, so must he ‘return’ himself to Him Who owns him absolutely. ~ Syed Muhammad Naquib al Attas, #NFDB
949:Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
950:Trump is the Kim Kardashian of American politics, replacing substance with solipsism and issues debates with Twitter feuds, and showing a rare talent for grabbing the attention of an ADD nation round the clock as he tries to be Troll in Chief. “Celebrity ~ Maureen Dowd, #NFDB
951:The less affluent must be able, at least in theory, to catch up with the more affluent. Hence politics remains without substance, a realm from which the crucial dimensions of life, the core values, are excluded.42 Who, then, can criticize this situation? ~ Morris Berman, #NFDB
952:This was where she belonged with Nur, right here, here in his songs. Here within the lyrics they were intimate, caught in the rythm of his words, proppelled by the substance of his dreams.
These songs would be their story and these lyrics their home. ~ Leila Aboulela,#NFDB
953:Now this connection or adaption of all created things with each, and of each with all the rest, means that each simple substance has relations which express all the others, and that consequently it is a perpetual living mirror of the universe. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
954:The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. There ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
955:And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream. ~ Daniel Libeskind, #NFDB
956:Each substance of grief hath twenty shadows, which shows like grief itself, but is not so; or sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears, divides one thing entire to many objects: like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon, show nothing but confusion: ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
957:He made a story for all of them, a story to give them strength. The words of the story poured out of his mouth as if they had substance, pebbles and stone extending to hold the corporal up...knees from buckling...hands from letting go of the blanket. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko, #NFDB
958:I remember vividly my student days, spending hours at the light microscope, turning endlessly the micrometric screw, and gazing at the blurred boundary which concealed the mysterious ground substance where the secret mechanisms of cell life might be found. ~ Albert Claude, #NFDB
959:Outside is pure energy and colorless substance. All of the rest happens through the mechanism of our senses. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings. ~ Albert Hofmann, #NFDB
960:To say that God is an incorporeal substance, is to say in effect there is no God at all. What alleges he against it, but the School-divinity which I have already answered? Scripture he can bring none, because the word incorporeal is not found in Scripture. ~ Thomas Hobbes, #NFDB
961:We must get the American public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship, to the reality, the hard substance of things. And we'll do it not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that bring people to their senses. ~ Mario Cuomo, #NFDB
962:You never know what a man -- or a woman -- has inside: how much grit, how much courage, how much willingness to change. When someone draws on those qualities, you're looking at a person of substance. And power. And promise. This world needs more of those. ~ Victoria Moran, #NFDB
963:Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks. ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB
964:Forget words like 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance, something that will inform and serve the consumer, and be sure you're saying it like it's never been said before. ~ William Bernbach, #NFDB
965:Light is a powerful substance. We have a primal connection to it. But, for something so powerful, situations for its felt presence are fragile . . . I like to work with it so that you feel it physically, so you feel the presence of light inhabiting a space. ~ James Turrell, #NFDB
966:There is a pain – so utter –
It swallows substance up –
Then covers the Abyss with Trance –
So Memory can step
Around – across – opon it –
As one within a Swoon –
Goes safely – where an open eye –
Would drop Him – Bone by Bone. ~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
967:There's more substance in my prose and my poetry than in all my films together. Writing is a more direct way of expressing yourself because, in cinema, you always have finances, organization, actors, technical apparatus and all that stuff coming in between. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
968:My father didn’t look at me. He dropped more stones upon a random-looking cairn. The townspeople were slow to get out of our sight. He waited and watched them and didn’t look at me and kept adding to the substance of the hill with the substance of the hill. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
969:Not everyone is bound for a life of substance abuse and addiction—but the moment you think you’re untouchable is the moment you’re most likely headed for trouble. If you’re going to be obsessed with something, make God your choice. That’s a habit worth keeping. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
970:One's true worth as a human being is not a matter of outward appearance or title, but derives rather from the breadth of one's spirit. Everything comes down to faith and conviction. It is what is in one's heart, and the substance of one's actions that count. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
971:Stated most simply, New Death is the condition whereby human corpses now lie always on a horizontal vector—no matter the angle of the surface or the substance of the matter below them—and now orient so that their feet are facing all observers, all the time. ~ China Mi ville, #NFDB
972:The left is expert at imagistics. The right is not, because the right falsely believes that shallow imagistics can be beaten with substance. Which has worked out fabulously for every great actress who is 300 lbs. in Hollywood – all two of them who are working. ~ Ben Shapiro, #NFDB
973:If your thought and your emotion are of your making, you can mold them any way you like. There is scientific proof today that without ingesting a drop of alcohol or any other substance, you can get fully intoxicated by yourself. An Israeli organic chemist, Raphael ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
974:I have taken special interest in these accounts [of UFOs].. I think there may be substance to some of these reports... I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject. ~ Gerald R Ford, #NFDB
975:Jim Rohn is the master motivator - he has style, substance, charisma, relevance, charm, and what he says makes a difference and it sticks. I consider Jim the 'Chairman of Speakers.' The world would be a better place if everyone heard my friend, Jim Rohn. ~ Mark Victor Hansen, #NFDB
976:No one who is in this world will deny that evils exist. What, then, do we say? That evil is not a living and animated substance, but a condition of the soul which is opposed to virtue and which springs up In the slothful because of their falling away from good. ~ Saint Basil, #NFDB
977:The one and only time an archangel can Make another angel is when our bodies produce a substance known as ambrosia. Ambrosia,is produced instinctively at a single point in an archangel’s life. It is legend that ambrosia only rises when an archangel loves true. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
978:Theory and fact are equally strong and utterly interdependent; one has no meaning without the other. We need theory to organize and interpret facts, even to know what we can or might observe. And we need facts to validate theories and give them substance. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
979:As one age falls, another rises, different to mortal sight, but to immortals only the same; for we see the same characters repeated again & again, in animals, vegetables, minerals, and in men; nothing new occurs. Substance can never suffer change nor decay.
~ William Blake,#NFDB
980:Empedocles noticed that if you cover the neck before you immerse it, a clepsydra does not fill. He reasoned that something invisible must be preventing the water from entering the sphere through the holes—he had discovered the material substance we call air. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
981:Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place be afforded: it can give form to dark shapeless substances but cannot bring into being the substance itself. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
982:Love itself is the most elitist of passions. It acquires its stereoscopic substance and perspective only in the context of culture, for it takes up more place in the mind than it does in bed. Outside of that setting it falls flat into one-dimensional fiction. ~ Joseph Brodsky, #NFDB
983:Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB
984:Most addictions are not substance addictions (alcohol, drugs, food, etc.), but process addictions (patterns of thinking and reacting.) Contemplation teaches you how to observe your small mind and, frankly, to see how inadequate it is to the task in front of you. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
985:To get back to the real substance of all things, you must get back into the thought world. Until one knows that the thought-energy is the cause of which is back of all things, and the product only the effect, then he is tied to the effect and is limited by it. ~ Walter Russell, #NFDB
986:We think there’s someplace other than here to get to—that’s what drives the whole pursuit. Only when the pursuit ceases, is it possible to recognize what comprises you: pure being, pure consciousness. This is actually the very substance of your own self and being. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
987:All men possess in their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents; and the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat. ~ Pliny the Elder, #NFDB
988:And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were all God; and yet mine understanding took that our Substance is in God: that is to say, that God is God, and our Substance is a creature in God. ~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (c.1393), Ch. 54, #NFDB
989:I called it ignose, not knowing which carbohydrate it was. This name was turned down by my editor. 'God-nose' was not more successful, so in the end 'hexuronic acid' was agreed upon. To-day the substance is called 'ascorbic acid' and I will use this name. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
990:Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances but cannot bring into being the substance itself. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
991:It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
992:The Gita does not decide for us. But if, whenever faced with a moral problem, you give up attachment to the ego and then decide what you should do, you will come to no harm. This is the substance of the argument which Shri Krishna has expanded into 18 chapters. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
993:The human body is not a thing or substance, given, but a continuous creation. The human body is an energy system which is never a complete structure; never static; is in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction; we destroy in order to make it new. ~ Norman O Brown, #NFDB
994:There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world’s real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance.” —William Longgood, The Queen Must Die ~ Susan Wiggs, #NFDB
995:From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
996:Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy! ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
997:In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. ~ Sri Aurobindo, TSOY, #NFDB
998:Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
999:Unfortunately, food now matters even more than it should. Food is beyond a necessity; it’s also a commodity, and it has been reformulated to be an addictive substance. This has many effects on our world: economically, politically, socially, and medically. There ~ Robert H Lustig, #NFDB
1000:You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever. Well, with manic depression, it's sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse - and that just sounds like a fantastic weekend in Vegas to me! ~ Carrie Fisher, #NFDB
1001:A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment. ~ Edward Gibbon, #NFDB
1002:Everything,” a journalist observed, “tended to represent the home of a man who has battled hard with the fortunes of life, and whose hard experience had taught him to enjoy whatever of success belongs to him, rather in solid substance than in showy display. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin, #NFDB
1003:If we enter the levels of personal existence which have been rediscovered by depth psychology, we encounter the past, the ancestors, the collective unconscious, the living substance in which all living beings participate. ~ Paul Tillich [quoted by Tacey in The Postsecular Sacred], #NFDB
1004:Later on, when it wasn't just facts that were required, it got so much harder for her. To have to put yourself out there - your opinions, your essence, the particular substance that churned inside you and made you who you were - both exhausted and frightened Greer. ~ Meg Wolitzer, #NFDB
1005:Novels are narratives to be in. To live in. To exist in. Not primarily forms to jump into and get to the end of. It’s a substance that the great big novel becomes…which invites you to be in it, not necessarily to leave it. To move around in it. To move laterally. ~ Joseph McElroy, #NFDB
1006:The basis and substance of Jung's entire life and work lie in the encounter of the single individual with his own god or daimon, his struggle with the overpowering emotions, affects, fantasies and creative inspirations and obstacles which come to light from within. ~ ML Von Franz, #NFDB
1007:The truth about this earth is that it is an infinitely good, beautiful, nourishing place to be. The only “evil” comes from a lack of understanding of this truth. Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow — it has no real substance of its own; it is simply a lack of light. ~ Shakti Gawain, #NFDB
1008:Hinduism is like the Ganga, pure and unsullied at its source but taking in its course the impurities in the way. Even like the Ganga it is beneficent in its total effect. It takes a provincial form in every province, but the inner substance is retained everywhere. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1009:On the electoral road, none of these things happen. There are no tanks in the streets. Constitutions and other nominally democratic institutions remain in place. People still vote. Elected autocrats maintain a veneer of democracy while eviscerating its substance. ~ Steven Levitsky, #NFDB
1010:You have to try to figure out what the addictive substance means symbolically. Otherwise,it will hold an almost religious significance. People are driven to addiction because there is no collective container for their natural spiritual needs. ~ Parabola interview w/ Marion Woodman, #NFDB
1011:How amazing it was, Holmes mentioned, that such a powerful substance, the chemistry of which was still not completely known, could be produced by the pharyngeal glands of the worker bee –creating queens from ordinary bee larvae, healing a multitude of mankind’s ills. ~ Mitch Cullin, #NFDB
1012:She should have remembered her past experiences in the relationship wars and not let herself get so excited. Evidently her hormones had overruled her common sense and she had become drunk on ovarian wine, the most potent, sanity- destroying substance in the universe. ~ Linda Howard, #NFDB
1013:She would never be caught unprepared again, she swore to herself. She would never trust. Never love. Never put faith in other human beings again. She would learn all she could of the shape and substance of the world, and she would find a way to survive in it. ~ David Anthony Durham, #NFDB
1014:The gentlest thing in the world
overcomes the hardest thing in the world.
That which has no substance
enters where there is no space.
This shows the value of non-action.
Teaching without words,
performing without actions:
that is the Master's way. ~ Lao Tzu,#NFDB
1015:The human mind moves always forward, alters its viewpoint and enlarges its thought substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and subtly or visibly to alter their value. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
1016:The Society likes to keep things from us, but the wind doesn’t care what we know. It brings hints of what has happened as we slip farther into the canyon—the smell of smoke and a white substance that falls on us. White ash. I don’t for one moment think that it’s snow. ~ Ally Condie, #NFDB
1017:Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
1018:Use values become a reality only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the material depositories of exchange value. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1019:How wonderful to find in living creatures the same substance as those which make up minerals. Nevertheless they felt a sort of humiliation at the idea that their persons contained phosphorous like matches, albumen like white of egg, hydrogen gas like street lamps. ~ Gustave Flaubert, #NFDB
1020:My colleagues and I fought to increase the resources to address several things, like maternity, prenatal, and newborn care, and mental health and substance abuse treatment. These are things everybody should care about, and resources should be available for families. ~ Martha McSally, #NFDB
1021:That pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere ... the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
1022:You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever.
Well, with manic depression, it's sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse - and that just sounds like a fantastic weekend in Vegas to me! ~ Carrie Fisher,#NFDB
1023:Faith is the substance that God used to create the universe, and He transported that faith with His words. God used His words as containers to transport His faith out there into the vast nothingness, into the darkness. He said, ''Light, be!" (Gen. 1:3.) And light was! ~ Charles Capps, #NFDB
1024:I didn't do anything to you." "You're right. You didn't. And if I kept shouting 'Revenge!' the whole time I was cutting you, that argument would have some substance. But since I've given no indication that my actions are vengeance-based, it was a pointless thing to say. ~ Jeff Strand, #NFDB
1025:In the same way that plants will not grow on soil that lacks some substance indispensable to their growth, so microbes, these microscopic plants which cause infectious disease, are unable to grow in an organism which does not give them all the substances they need. ~ Elie Metchnikoff, #NFDB
1026:Life becomes a loving partnership when we realize that God provides the raw substance of life—willpower, thoughts, feelings, mobility, etc.—but we must choose their form. In every beat of our hearts we can hear God say, “I am with you. I love you. Be my partner in life. ~ David Aaron, #NFDB
1027:Since the forthcoming write-up of my Ph.D. dissertation was much in my mind, it was the work of a moment to begin a solemn dissertation containing all the stigmata of academic turgidity about a substance which dissolved in water 1.12 seconds before you added the water. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
1028:The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It's like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
1029:What fills the psyche with new substance is not what the traditions have taken into account. This is because the archetypes that cause trouble are not ones that have been enshrined in official religions. Perhaps only poets, artists & prophets can deal with this situation. ~ Tacey, #NFDB
1030:According to quantum field theory, fields alone are real. They are the substance of the universe and not 'matter'. Matter is simply the momentary manifestation of interacting fields which, intangible and insubstantial as they are, are the only real things in the universe. ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
1031:High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make. ~ Henry A Kissinger, #NFDB
1032:The psychological substance of the whole thing has altered; the marble has turned to ice; and the ice has melted with most amazing rapidity. The Church was right to refuse even the exception. The world has admitted the exception; and the exception has become the rule. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1033:There is only one way to respect the substance of any purported God-given moral edict: consider it conscientiously in the full light of reason, using all the evidence at our command. No God that was pleased by displays of unreasoning love would be worthy of worship. ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
1034:One begins to realize that art... in setting out to express nature with ever growing accuracy, teaches us to look, to perceive, to feel. The stone itself becomes an organic substance, and one can feel it being transformed as one moment in its life succeeds another. ~ Georges Clemenceau, #NFDB
1035:Age in itself gives substance — what has lasted becomes a thing worth keeping. An older poem's increasing strangeness of language is part of its beauty, in the same way that the cracks and darkening of an old painting become part of its luminosity in the viewer’s mind. ~ Jane Hirshfield, #NFDB
1036:The metaphysics of substance. The strange feeling which comes over us when we sense: this is skin - this is bone - all in a single vision that is completely unearthly. The dreaminess of our existence mixed at the same time with the indescribably sweet illusion of reality. ~ Max Beckmann, #NFDB
1037:You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone. ~ Rod Serling, #NFDB
1038:Barkley’s comment that ADD is more impairing than any syndrome in all mental health that is treated on an outpatient basis. More impairing than anxiety, more impairing than depression, more impairing than substance abuse. The “morbidity” of untreated ADD is profound. ~ Edward M Hallowell, #NFDB
1039:It's ridiculous that we continue to incarcerate anyone for using a substance that actually causes far less damage than alcohol. No one goes out looking for fights on marijuana. No one dies from marijuana intoxication. And no one should be jailed for possessing marijuana. ~ Susan Sarandon, #NFDB
1040:Scholar Michael S. Heiser has pointed out that the Hebrew word Elohim was more of a reference to a plane of existence than to a substance of being. In this way, Yahweh was Elohim, but no other elohim was Yahweh. Yahweh is incomparably THE Elohim of elohim (Deut. 10:17).[2] ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1041:There was nothing left of Earth. They had leeched away the last atoms of its substance. It had nourished them, through the fierce moments of their inconceivable metamorphosis, as the food stored in a grain of wheat feeds the infant plant while it climbs towards the Sun. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
1042:We may say that a basic substance is one which has a lone pair of electrons which may be used to complete the stable group of another atom, and that an acid is one which can employ a lone pair from another molecule in completing the stable group of one of its own atoms. ~ Gilbert N Lewis, #NFDB
1043:A blurred region, in the heart of vastness, far from earth and heaven, with no ground underfoot, no vault of sky overhead, nothing. I am the prisoner of an alien matter and my body is clothed in a dead, formless substance - or rather I have no body, I am that alien matter. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
1044:All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never-ending cycles all things and phenomena. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
1045:Happiness requires courage, stamina, persistence, fortitude, perseverance, bravery, boldness, valor, vigor, concentration, solidity, substance, backbone, grit, guts, moxie, nerve, pluck, resilience, spunk, tenacity, tolerance, will power, chutzpah, and a good thesaurus. ~ Peter McWilliams, #NFDB
1046:He felt, though, that if love was the desire to possess someone, it was in reality the poor substance of self-love. It seemed to him that a greater, truer love was the desire to open a cage—be it made of iron bars or the bones of tormented injustice—and set the nightbird free. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1047:I have drawn people's attention to the fact that art is a mirage. A mirage, just like the oasis that appears in the desert. It is very beautiful, until the moment when you die of thirst, obviously. But we do not die of thirst in the field of art. The mirage has substance. ~ Marcel Duchamp, #NFDB
1048:Ordinary matter is what we are all made of. It has gravity and interacts with light. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that has gravity but does not interact with light in any known way. Dark energy is a mysterious pressure in the vacuum of space that acts in the ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1049:This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai: if by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. his whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo, #NFDB
1050:We believe the substance we have extracted from pitchblende contains a metal not yet observed, related to bismuth by its analytical properties. If the existence of this new metal is confirmed we propose to call it polonium, from the name of the original country of one of us. ~ Marie Curie, #NFDB
1051:What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
1052:But Peter knew it wasn’t empty. For one thing he’d left part of himself in it. Not a hand or a nose or a foot, thank God. But things that had no substance but fantastic weight. He’d left his hope there, and trust. He’d left his faith there too. What little he had, he’d lost. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
1053:Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story, so that when one matter is despatched—love for instance—we go on, in an orderly manner, to the next. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
1054:My mother's journals are a shadow play with mine. I am a woman wedded to words. Words cast a shadow. Without a shadow there is no depth. Without a shadow there is no substance. If we have no shadow, it means we are invisible. As long as I have a shadow, I am alive. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1055:The experience of the relationship of the personal ego to the transpersonal self can give meaning, direction and substance to our lives. It can bring us into gradual union with the totality of being & heal split between ourselves & everything we seek to know and understand ~ Baring, #NFDB
1056:The pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling - a homely fancy, but I judged it to be sugar-candy; yet to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy. ~ Charles Lamb, #NFDB
1057:The sanctions have nothing to do with our relations with China, because our relations with the People's Republic of China are at an unprecedented high both in terms of their level and substance. They are what we call "a comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation". ~ Vladimir Putin, #NFDB
1058:We are but shadows: we are, not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream,--till the heart be touched. That touch creates us--then we begin to be--thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
1059:You see, there are three factors one must consider when choosing a snack from a vending machine. Substance, for one. It needs to hold you over until real food is available. Freshness, which your cereal bar is sorely lacking. And finally”—his eyes dropped to her mouth—“taste. ~ Tessa Bailey, #NFDB
1060:As for the Pope, I am too old to be frightened by his shadow, and am quite sure his shadow or Substance will do less harm to the liberties of my country than will a party, who seek to acquire political power by exciting religious bigotry in the minds of their duped followers. ~ Ezra Cornell, #NFDB
1061:But no matter what the dictionary says, in my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train. Given that, I’ve had three and a half problems. A dead guy in my bed, substance abuse, and manic-depression. ~ Carrie Fisher, #NFDB
1062:Must look into the botanical background of substance known as hashish," I jotted in my journal, writing by the light of candles that grew incessantly jewel-like even as protean wafts of incense approached my snout like platters of ripe fruits borne on the back of Nubian pages. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1063:While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons work in the crucible of identity: every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of our selves, and every conversation with a patient undergoing brain surgery cannot help but confront this fact. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
1064:In a culture that elevates beauty and style, the Christian community is at genuine risk fordistraction, even deception. What do we truly admire in our leaders? Are we nodifferent from secular population, drawn tocharisma and style above substance and i tegrity?
I hope not. ~ Jen Hatmaker,#NFDB
1065:The sum and substance of my teaching is this: Don't be dishonest to your vital breath; worship that only, abide in that only, accept it as yourself. And when you worship in this manner, it can lead you anywhere, to any heights- this is the quintessence of my talks. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, #NFDB
1066:This investigation has yielded an unanticipated result that reaction of cyanic acid with ammonia gives urea, a noteworthy result in as much as it provides an example of the artificial production of an organic, indeed a so-called animal, substance from inorganic substances. ~ Friedrich Wohler, #NFDB
1067:A commodity has a value because it is a crystallization of social labor. The greatness of its value, or its relative value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of labor necessary for its production. ~ Karl Marx, #NFDB
1068:Almost all people suffer some form of intense inner pain at some times in their lives. The suffering might be depression, anxiety, substance abuse, or suicidal thoughts and it results from the battles we wage against our thoughts as we futilely try to get rid of our historie. ~ Steven C Hayes, #NFDB
1069:Digital physics had reigned supreme since before he’d been born, and its dictums were as incontrovertible as they were absurd. Numbers didn’t just describe reality; numbers were reality, discrete step functions smoothing up across the Planck length into an illusion of substance. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
1070:I always had, you know, in the book of Hebrews, I think it's chapter 11, verse 1, where it says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I always had this sense that there was something on the other side. That there was something better. ~ Naomi Judd, #NFDB
1071:The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason that governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things are made and perfected according to this reason. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1072:This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai: if by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way.
his whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo,#NFDB
1073:Whatever else the election of Barack Obama represented—some have called it redemption, others have called it the triumph of style over substance—it was the ultimate victory for people who believe that black political gains are of utmost importance to black progress in America. ~ Jason L Riley, #NFDB
1074:In our cultural collective imagination, the food safety threat that looms largest is botulism, the rare but often deadly neurological disease caused by botulinum, “the most poisonous substance known to humans,”2 a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. Early ~ Sandor Ellix Katz, #NFDB
1075:In recent weeks, in true messianic style, it has come clear to her that her real identity is literally, the force of gravity. I am Gravity, I am That against which the Rocket must struggle, to which prehistoric wastes submit and are transmuted to the very substance of History. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
1076:People are still disturbingly vague about the treatment of animals. People still seem to believe that meat is a particular substance not at all connected to animals playing in the field over there. People don't realise how gruesomely and fighteningly the animal gets to the plate... ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
1077:Resolutions, like all spiritual virtues, can be misused by the ego when mindfulness is absent. There are few things that will keep you in the bondage of habit like a grand resolution. It is like an empty box wrapped in the best of
intentions, yet lacking anything of substance. ~ Darren Main,#NFDB
1078:The substance of the universe is obedient and compliant; and the reason which governs it has in itself no cause for doing evil, for it has no malice, nor does it do evil to anything, nor is anything harmed by it. But all things are made and perfected according to this reason. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1079:Carbon dioxide is natural, it is not harmful, it is a part of Earth's lifecycle. And yet we're being told that we have to reduce this natural substance, reduce the American standard of living, to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in Earth. ~ Michele Bachmann, #NFDB
1080:In the spaniards heart is a great yearning for freedom, but only his own. A great love for truth and honor in all its forms, but not in its substance. And a deep conviction that nothing can be proven except that it be made to bleed. Virgins, bulls, men. Ultimately God himself. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
1081:I think that genre distinctions basically boil down to marketing categories, which are outdated. Any time people have an argument about them, they're arguing about something that doesn't exist in any meaningful way that has to do with style or substance or actual content of books. ~ Emily Gould, #NFDB
1082:We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child. ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
1083:We’re making new investments in the development of gasoline and diesel and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance-algae... We could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in the United States. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
1084:Whenever utopians present the substance of their wishes and fight to make them actual, a fair number of their dreams will often come true, often because the triumphant ideas have won less philanthropic allies. The best hopes for humanity will be used to pick the pockets of mankind. ~ Mark Greif, #NFDB
1085:Your ideas about right and wrong are just that-ideas. They are the thoughts which form the shape and create the substance of Who You Are. There would be only one reason to change any of these; only one purpose in making an alteration: if you are not happy with Who You Are. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
1086:Addiction is craving fulfillment from something that cannot provide fulfillment. In this sense it is not different than the basic mechanism of ignorance that keeps everyone in bondage. With substance addiction the mind/body sets up a vicious cycle that perpetuates the dependence. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1087:I am demonstrating to you how tasty I think words are. I’m having sex with words in front of you. I’m playing around with them. I’m getting off. I’m trying to titillate you. There’s this magical substance, language, that I’m laying out for you. Then you’re going to fondle it. ~ Wayne Koestenbaum, #NFDB
1088:Substance is a subspecies of value. When you reverse the containment process and define substance in terms of value the mystery disappears: substance is a "stable pattern of inorganic values." The problem then disappears. The world of objects and the world of values is unified. ~ Robert M Pirsig, #NFDB
1089: The griding sword with discontinuous wound Pass'd through him, but th' Ethereal substance clos'd Not long divisible, and from the gash A stream of Nectarous humor issuing flow'd Sanguin, such as Celestial Spirits may bleed, And all his Armour staind ere while so bright. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
1090:Though (the Tao) is uncreated itself, it creates all things. Because it has no substance, it can enter into where there is no space. Exercising by returning to itself, winning victories by remaining gentle and yielding, it is softer than anything, and therefore overcomes everything hard. ~ Laozi, #NFDB
1091:Who is that is dreaming all of this? Ecstasy, pure ecstasy, joy beyond understanding, bliss beyond the dry dullness of the mind's philosophical ranging, light beyond any light in this world - The substance and the essence of all existence is this light, the transcendental light. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
1092:The illusionist sub-class sprang from my reading. So many spellworkers in fable and fiction used only the illusory, not "real magic" that had actual substance and effect, that I thought it would be fun to include such an option in the game. ~ Gary Gygax, ENWorld, Q&A with Gary Gygax part 1, 2002, #NFDB
1093:The State is also subject to the law of Malthus. It is continually living beyond its means, it increases in proportion to its means, and draws its support solely from the substance of the people. Woe to the people who are incapable of limiting the sphere of action of the State. ~ Fr d ric Bastiat, #NFDB
1094:An aphorism is a speculative principle either in science or morals, which is presented in a few words to the understanding; it is the substance of a doctrine, and many aphorisms may contain the abstract of a science. ~ George Crabb, English Synonymes Explained, in Alphabetical Order, (1846) p. 114, #NFDB
1095:But I didn't know where I wanted to go. Or what I wanted to do when I got there. I had dreams, but they were vague things with no real substance. I wanted to be famous, or really rich, or wildly successful, but that was as far as the dream went. My whole life was a fill-in-the-blank. ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
1096:If the United States is to produce a nation of investors-as we must if we are to gain financial world-leadership-it is imperative that boards of directors be so constituted as to adequately represent the interests and inspire the complete confidence of investors of moderate substance. ~ B C Forbes, #NFDB
1097:In recent weeks, in true messianic style, it has come clear to her that her real identity is literally, the force of gravity.
I am Gravity, I am That against which the Rocket must struggle, to which prehistoric wastes submit and are transmuted to the very substance of History. ~ Thomas Pynchon,#NFDB
1098:Responsibility is not an attribute, it is the “substance” of human existence. It contains everything..., [it is] that which distinguishes man from all other creatures....’ (p.50). Therefore ‘if responsibility be eliminated, the whole meaning of human existence disappears’ (p.258). ~ John R W Stott, #NFDB
1099:We are in the position of the man who has only two ambitions in life. One is to invent the universal solvent which will dissolve any solid substance, and the second is to invent the universal container which will hold any liquid. Whatever this inventor does, he will be frustrated. ~ Norbert Wiener, #NFDB
1100:When I emerge into the dry, immaculate air of the storage facility, I am a man made perfectly inert: I cannot chip, scratch, fade, corrode, or react with any physical substance in the known universe. I guess I could still lick something. I'm surprised Barry didn't tape my mouth shut. ~ Robin Sloan, #NFDB
1101:capital is the result of saving, and not of spending. The spendthrift who wastes his substance in riotous living decreases the capital of the country, and therefore the excuse often made for extravagance, that it is good for trade, is based upon false notions respecting capital. ~ Millicent Fawcett, #NFDB
1102:In a superficial world, body image is everything. But in a world filled with substance, a beautiful mind, heart and soul are everything. The second world does not exist because the ego overpowers the heart. And the first world will continue to exist until the heart overpowers the ego. ~ Suzy Kassem, #NFDB
1103:I suppose it was karma that Substance would then turn out to be our biggest-selling album ever; we gave away our biggest-selling record to the record company at a reduced cost – for no reason other than they couldn’t pay us for the other ones at the full rate because of bad management. ~ Peter Hook, #NFDB
1104:Religion is best when it points beyond itself, like Isaiah or John the Baptist. It is worst when it gives you just enough of the forms to inoculate you against the substance, when it substitutes rituals for reality, the container for the contents, the wineskins for the ecstatic wine. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1105:Sometimes they rose up inside her, these moments of fierce happiness, kindling out of their own substance like a spark igniting a mound of grass. It was a joy to be alive, a strange and savage joy, and she stood there in the warmth and destruction of it knowing it could not last. ~ Kevin Brockmeier, #NFDB
1106:Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1107:Water, the Hub of Life. Water is its mater and matrix, mother and medium. Water is the most extraordinary substance! Practically all its properties are anomolous, which enabled life to use it as building material for its machinery. Life is water dancing to the tune of solids. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi, #NFDB
1108:Being invisible and without substance, a disembodied voice, as it were, what else could I do? What else but try to tell you what was really happening when your eyes were looking through? And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
1109:I will dance a little. I will move with the wind. I will give my body to my love and celebrate that we have substance beyond the idea of ourselves. We can move. We can touch. This is my physical exclamation point. This is how I can awaken my mind to the possibilities in the day. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher, #NFDB
1110:J'aperçois Dieu partout dans ses oeuvres ; je le sens en moi, je le vois tout autour de moi ; mais sitôt que je veux le contempler en lui-même, sitôt que je veux chercher où il est, ce qu'il est, quelle est sa substance, il m'échappe et mon esprit troublé n'aperçoit plus rien. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
1111:O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest - A dammed saint, an honourable villain! ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1112:Pericles, act 2, sc. 1, l. 1-3. Seeing the storm that has shipwrecked him as marking the anger of the heavens!
"Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven! Wind, rain, and thunder, remember earthly man Is but a substance that must yield to you."
-William Shakespeare ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1113:School children and students who love God should never say: "For my part I like mathematics"; "I like French"; "I like Greek." They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer. ~ Simone Weil, #NFDB
1114:The substance of story is the gap that splits open between what a human being expects to happen when he takes an action and what really does happen; the rift between expectation and result, probability and necessity. To build a scene, we constantly break open these breaches in reality. ~ Robert McKee, #NFDB
1115:Without aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repetition of familiar clichés or a wild scramble
for novelty. Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing
effects without substance. Form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form. ~ Paul Rand,#NFDB
1116:Our mind is the foundation of all our actions, whether they are actions of body, speech, or mind, i.e., thinking. Whatever we think, say, or do arises from our mind. What our consciousness consumes becomes the substance of our life, so we have to be very careful which nutriments we ingest. ~ Nhat Hanh, #NFDB
1117:After death, life reappears in a different form and with different laws. It is inscribed in the laws of the permanence of life on the surface of the earth and everything that has been a plant and an animal will be destroyed and transformed into a gaseous, volatile and mineral substance. ~ Louis Pasteur, #NFDB
1118:And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another. ~ Joseph Smith Jr, #NFDB
1119:Everybody is trying to make something real, something with a core of substance, and of course, an exciting action movie with a lot of terrific stuff and fantastic visuals and everything, but at the core of it, it's a movie with substance and something that is going to make people think. ~ Joel Kinnaman, #NFDB
1120:I'd hate it to become style over substance, I'd hate people to start putting me in a magazine article about my style. I don't like dressing up in something I'm not necessarily comfortable in just to make it more of a show. I want the power to come from what I sing about and how I sing. ~ Ellie Goulding, #NFDB
1121:Most astrophysicists believe that the force holding stars and galaxies together—the thing that makes our whole universe work—comes from a theoretical substance we can’t measure or observe directly. Something they call dark matter. And this dark matter makes up most of the known universe. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
1122:That in the sanctification of believers, the Holy Ghost doth work in them, in their whole souls, their minds, wills, and affections, a gracious, supernatural habit, principle, and disposition of living unto God; wherein the substance or essence, the life and being, of holiness doth consist. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
1123:Why, when a poison is diluted in water to the point where it cannot by physically detected, does the previously toxic solution then become therapeutic? When the substance itself is gone, and all that is left is the information from the vibration, both poison and medicine become the same. ~ Masaru Emoto, #NFDB
1124:American government is not dominated by engineers, it is dominated by lawyers. Engineers are interested in substance and building things; lawyers are interested in process and rights and getting the ideology correctly blended. And so there is sort of no really concrete plan for the future. ~ Peter Thiel, #NFDB
1125:I don't really eliminate body, but reduce it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass, which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
1126:If I do His will as a free act of homage and adoration paid to a wisdom that I cannot see, His will itself becomes the life and substance and reality of my worship/ But if I do His will as a perfunctory adjustment of my own will to the unavoidable, my worship is hollow and without heart. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1127:It might work in the short term, but it's not going to keep the people who hop from congregation to congregation. Church is about one's relationship with God and one's relationship with people. The gimmick may attract you for the moment, but it's the substance that will hold you there. ~ J Gordon Melton, #NFDB
1128:(Sartre) (The world is full without me, as in Nausea; the world plays at living behind a glass partition; the world is in an aquarium; I see everything close up and yet cut off, made of some other substance; I keep falling outside myself, without dizziness, without blue, into precision. ~ Roland Barthes, #NFDB
1129:Success built simply on talent, in the absence of the necessary substance of true, hard-won character, will always be short-lived and does not lead to personal fulfillment. Life will pimp your talent and suck it out of you, if you let it, leaving you with deep loneliness and regrets. Perhaps ~ Neil Cole, #NFDB
1130:We are served by organic ghosts, he thought, who, speaking and writing, pass through this our new environment. Watching, wise, physical ghosts from the full-life world, elements of which have become for us invading but agreeable splinters of a substance that pulsates like a former heart. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
1131:My parents had torn through my innocence and left me with a tar-like substance that was corrupting what was left of me. I could feel it at night; slithering and curling around my soul as it slowly devoured me. It was draining my energy and replacing it with an evil I was afraid to confront. ~ J D Stroube, #NFDB
1132:[On common water.] Its substance reaches everywhere; it touches the past and prepares the future; it moves under the poles and wanders thinly in the heights of air. It can assume forms of exquisite perfection in a snowflake, or strip the living to a single shining bone cast up by the sea. ~ Loren Eiseley, #NFDB
1133:The more we serve our fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls. We become more significant individuals as we serve others. We become more substantive as we serve others—indeed, it is easier to “find” ourselves because there is so much more of us to find! ~ Spencer W Kimball, #NFDB
1134:There are living systems; there is no living "matter." No substance, no single molecule, extracted and isolated from a living being possess, of its own, the aforementioned paradoxical properties. They are present in living systems only; that is to say, nowhere below the level of the cell. ~ Jacques Monod, #NFDB
1135:To a nonpainter, oil paint is uninteresting and faintly unpleasant. To a painter, it is the life's blood: a substance so utterly entrancing, infuriating, and ravishingly beautiful that it makes it worthwhile to go back into the studio every morning, year after year, for an entire lifetime. ~ James Elkins, #NFDB
1136:I hate solitude but I am afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself and to turn it into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1137:I savored the fortune of being, for a good seventy-four years, a happy transmutation of the sidereal substance that roils in the furnace of the universe, a fragment of living thinking matter, without too many aches and pains to boot, and barely scathed, purely by chance, by misfortune. ~ Domenico Starnone, #NFDB
1138:Never forget that the universe is a single living organism possessed of one substance and one soul, holding all things suspended in a single consciousness and creating all things with a single purpose that they might work together spinning and weaving and knotting whatever comes to pass. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1139:1058
There Is A Pain—so Utter
599
There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.
~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
1140:At the danger of waxing nostalgic about the ‘old days,’ I don’t want to be like everyone else. I want acceptance, but I want acceptance of my difference, not my sameness. It’s a funny contract. The cultural machine wants to chew everyone up and turn them into this uniform little substance. ~ Alison Bechdel, #NFDB
1141:God is gathering us out of all regions till he can make resurrection of our own hearts from the very earth [emphasis added], and teach us that we are all of one substance, and members of one another; for the one who loves his neighbor loves God, and the one who loves God, loves his own soul. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1142:I looked to animal and insect imagery to develop the lack of substance and wasted motion that my Terminator has. I tried to tap into the killer instinct inherent in animals, where they are locked onto a target and will walk through anything that gets between them and their intended target. ~ Robert Patrick, #NFDB
1143:O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!
Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest - A dammed saint, an honourable villain! ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1144:Without classifying radical thought as a Spinozistic tendency, combining one-substance doctrine or philosophical monism with democracy and a purely secular moral philosophy based on equality, the basic mechanics of eighteenth-century controversy, thought, and polemics cannot be grasped. ~ Jonathan I Israel, #NFDB
1145:How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and evenly coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
1146:Now, I think, few words more are needed to disclose the point of resemblance between a clockwork and an organism. It is simply and solely that the latter also hinges upon a solid – the aperiodic crystal forming the hereditary substance, largely withdrawn from the disorder of heat motion. ~ Erwin Schr dinger, #NFDB
1147:Our thesis is that the idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness. ~ Karl Polanyi, #NFDB
1148:There are some stories, some memories, that if you tell them after dark, they seem to gain weight, substance, as if there are things listening, waiting to hear themselves spoken of again. Words have power. But even thinking about them is sometimes enough to make the air in a room heavy. ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
1149:This interconnection or accommodation of all created things to each other, and each to all the others, brings it about that each simple substance has relations that express all the others, and consequently, that each simple substance is a perpetual, living mirror of the universe. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
1150:For the social ecologist language is not "communication." It is not just "message." It is substance. It is the cement that holds humanity together. It creates community and communication. ...Social ecologists need not be "great" writers; but they have to be respectful writers, caring writers. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
1151:I am an invisible man. No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms.I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
1152:Of all the states of emotion I've ever been in, music takes me to the strongest state of emotion the quickest, of any other sort of state of mind I've ever been in or been put in by any substance or circumstance, music brings me to an emotional state of being faster than anything I've ever known ~ Ben Harper, #NFDB
1153:We must reflect a holistic view of the leader, in three dimensions, character, substance and style. Character consists of the qualities that win trust whereas substance consists of the qualities that earn us credibility; style is the dimension of execution - getting others to get things done. ~ Suzanne Bates, #NFDB
1154:How resilient was the body, to return to its prior form so quickly! Yet the mind was formed of a less pliable substance. The emptiness in her thoughts would not be so easily filled. Instead there was a hollowness among them-a place she had reserved for future joys which now would never arrive. ~ Galen Beckett, #NFDB
1155:The initiation of the fermentation process does not require so complicated an apparatus as is represented by the living cell. The agent responsible for the fermenting action of the press juice is rather to be regarded as a dissolved substance, doubtless a protein; this will be denoted zymase. ~ Eduard Buchner, #NFDB
1156:Then, were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1157:If the only way you can inspire the troops is by a regimen of exhaustion, it’s time to look for some deeper substance. Because what trickles down is less likely to be admiration but dread and fear instead. A leader who sets an example of self-sacrifice can’t help but ask self-sacrifice of others. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
1158:In the Fiji islands, it appears, cannibalism is now familiar. They eat thier own wives and children. We only devour widows' houses, and great merchants outwit and absorb the substance of small ones, and every man feeds on his neighbor's labor if he can. It is a milder form of cannibalism. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
1159:In these times - where social appearance is more important than spiritual substance - what has become our longing to change is really the unconscious desire to control not just the shape of our bodies (according to prevailing values) but to dominate our environment as well, regardless of the cost. ~ Guy Finley, #NFDB
1160:[A] right,” he said there, “is only the hypostasis of a prophecy—the imagination of a substance supporting the fact that the public force will be brought to bear upon those who do things to contravene it—just as we talk of the force of gravitation accounting for the conduct of bodies in space.”17 ~ Louis Menand, #NFDB
1161:darling Eloise. You own the space you take up in this world. Abraham Lincoln said, ‘You have to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.’ You stand straight and proud in every inch of your magnificence. Otherwise you let me and all our blessed sisters of substance down.” She ~ Stacey Ballis, #NFDB
1162:Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These three are one [thing], not one [Person], as it is said, 'I and my Father are One,' in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
1163:a greyish substance that might be blood. Remembering the spray I caught earlier, I wipe a hand across my face and it comes away wet and sticky with the same grey liquid. “I’d kill for a shower,” I mutter, chuckling darkly at the sick joke. Juni cuts a long, jagged line through the creature’s flesh, ~ Darren Shan, #NFDB
1164:A lot of companies focus on the next big thing. They latch on to what’s hot and new. They follow the latest trends and technology. That’s a fool’s path. You start focusing on fashion instead of substance. You start paying attention to things that are constantly changing instead of things that last. ~ Jason Fried, #NFDB
1165:It is necessary to give freely if we are to receive freely. The law of receiving includes giving. The knowledge that substance is omnipresent and that people cannot, therefore, impoverish themselves by giving (but rather will increase their supply) will enable us to give freely and cheerfully. ~ Charles Fillmore, #NFDB
1166:Life is nothing like a choose your own adventure. Except for when it is, in its randomness: a cancer sell splitting and spreading ruthlessly within the bloodstream; a storm raising on a deadly lake. Except for when it is, in the way the ending changes - in memory in meaning father than substance. ~ Carrie Snyder, #NFDB
1167:There is an appreciated substance to the phrase "ALGOL-like" which is often used in arguments about programming, languages and computation. ALGOL appears to be a durable model, and even flourishes under surgery — be it explorative, plastic, or amputative. ~ Alan Perlis, The Synthesis of Algorithmic Systems, 1966, #NFDB
1168:I am an invisible man. No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
1169:In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under such rubric I find written many things; and among them the words which I purpose to copy into this little book; if not all of them, at the least their substance. ~ Dante Alighieri, #NFDB
1170:The original gargoyles were carved from Irish soil; sand, silt and clay sculpted by dark forces beyond the imagination of man. These new horrors reflected the characteristics of the substance that spawned them. Formed from gray cement, their bodies were streaked with paint from the parking spaces. ~ William Massa, #NFDB
1171:There was so much of beauty here: the neat, small tracks of a foraging creature, stoat or marten; the inticate tracery of a skeleton leaf, still clinging vainly to its parent tree as, little by little, time stripped it of its substance, leaving only the delicate remembrance of what it had been. ~ Juliet Marillier, #NFDB
1172:This is the middle of my life, I think of it as a place, like the middle of a river, the middle of a bridge, halfway across, halfway over. I'm supposed to have accumulated things by now: possessions, responsibilities, achievements, experience and wisdom. I'm supposed to be a person of substance. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
1173:Tsukuru couldn't fathom what this substance was. He couldn't accept or reject it. It merely settled on his body as a shadowy swarm, laying an ample amount of shadowy eggs. Then darkness would withdraw and twilight would return, bringing with it the birds, who once again slashed away at his body. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1174:We should be empty of clutching, empty of self, empty of all the old ideas of substance. We should be ‘lost in the objectivity of world-love’, as I have elsewhere put it; or, perhaps better, we should let ourselves be only an empty space filled with brightness. Life lived like that is ‘eternal’ life. ~ Don Cupitt, #NFDB
1175:When we consider the being and substance of that universe in which we are immutably set, we shall discover that neither we ourselves nor any substance doth suffer death. For nothing is in fact diminished in its substance, but all things, wandering through infinite space, undergo change of aspect. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
1176:In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
1177:Of the eternal incorporeal substance nothing is changed, is formed or deformed, but there always remains only that thing which cannot be a subject of dissolution, since it is not possible that it be a subject of composition, and therefore, either of itself or by accident, it cannot be said to die. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
1178:The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course, it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1179:The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. ~ Francis Bacon, #NFDB
1180:Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
1181:Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person - you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1182:The point was the most dangerous place we would have to negotiate in the kayak. It was also a great confluence of life, and this combination of peril and substance sent the spirit spinning off into various ethereal regions, in which a man might be tempted to commit philosophy.
From Baha by Kayak ~ Tim Cahill,#NFDB
1183:When Paul moved the heart of Christian theology from Christ’s life to his death, it made the implication of the Jews in his killing not just unavoidable but central to the new religion’s teaching. And since Christ was inseparably of the same substance as God the Father, that made their crime deicide. ~ Simon Schama, #NFDB
1184:A Buddhist meditator, while benefiting from the refinement of consciousness he has achieved, will be able to see these meditative experiences for what they are; and he will further know that they are without any abiding substance that could be attributed to a deity manifesting itself to his mind. ~ Nyanaponika Thera, #NFDB
1185:But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
1186:If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
1187:McDonald's offers a king's ransom to any hip-hop artist who is able to put Big Mac into a song. MTV - and more to the point, Viacom - is succeeding in extending a teenage life to twenty-nine or even thirty-one years old. It is about extending this market and removing any intelligent substance in the music. ~ Chuck D, #NFDB
1188:No man complains of his neighbor for ill management of his affairs, for an error in sowing his land, or marrying his daughter, for consuming his substance in taverns ... in all these he has liberty; but if he does not frequent the church, or then conform in ceremonies, there is an immediate uproar. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1189:One disagreeable result of whispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound - strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1190:This whole which is visible in different ways in bodies, as far as formation, constitution, appearance, colors and other properties and common qualities, is none other than the diverse face of the same substance a changeable, mobile face, subject to decay, of an immobile, permanent and eternal being. ~ Giordano Bruno, #NFDB
1191:As long as we deny a person or group the claim to be as right and as real as we are, so long may we hold this dreamlike claim for ourselves alone. And it is the duty of everyone to inculcate a sense of nothingness, an ache of being empty of substance and value, in those who are not emulations of them. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
1192:Economists have calculated that every dollar invested in high-quality home visitation, day care, and preschool programs results in seven dollars of savings on welfare payments, health-care costs, substance-abuse treatment, and incarceration, plus higher tax revenues due to better-paying jobs.37 ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
1193:I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
1194:It's a fact of being in love that we often pay no attention whatsoever to the substance of what a lover says, while being intoxicated to ecstasy by the way it's said. I was in love with her eyes, but I didn't read them. I loved her voice, but I didn't really hear the fear and the anguish in it. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
1195:Briefly summarising, we can express the proposed law thus: consciousness is bound up with learning in organic substance; organic competence is unconscious. Still more briefly, and put in a form which is admittedly rather obscure and open to misunderstanding: Becoming is conscious, being unconscious. ~ Erwin Schr dinger, #NFDB
1196:Its a fact of being in love that we often pay no attention whatsoever to the substance of what a lover says, while being intoxicated to ecstasy by the way it's said. I was in love with her eyes, but I didn't read them. I loved her voice, but I didn't really hear the fear & the anguish in it. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
1197:I wonder if I will have any teeth left by then. Not that I need them for the cheese-substance sandwiches. But teeth are good things to have in any case. They improve your smile, no matter how fake it is. And without teeth, all the money I have spent on toothpaste over the years would be a complete waste. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
1198:When people try to destroy art or thought,” Milo explained, “it makes all forms of art and thought valuable. It’s a slippery slope once we start saying what people should or shouldn’t see. It’s a real evil, a thing with substance and power. I was helping to preserve people’s chance to see and to choose. ~ Michael Poore, #NFDB
1199:As I am writing, another illustration of ye generation of hills proposed above comes into my mind. Milk is as uniform a liquor as ye chaos was. If beer be poured into it & ye mixture let stand till it be dry, the surface of ye curdled substance will appear as rugged & mountanous as the Earth in any place. ~ Isaac Newton, #NFDB
1200:[Our Lord Jesus Christ] was... carried up to heaven (Lk. 24:50-51). With a radiant cloud for a chariot, He ascended in glory (cf. Acts 1:9), entered the Holy of Holies not made by hands and sat down on the right hand of the heavenly majesty, making our human substance share His own throne and divinity. ~ Gregory Palamas, #NFDB
1201:So long as love is not exalted into substance, … an essence, so long there lurks in the background of love a subject who even without love is something by himself, an unloving monster, a diabolical being, [who] … delights in the blood of heretics and unbelievers, - the phantom of religious fanaticism. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach, #NFDB
1202:That our words are, as a general rule, filled by the people to whom we address them with a meaning which those people desire from their own substance, a meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words when we uttered them, is a fact which is perpetually demonstrated in daily life. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1203:The Mosaic Law, with all its ceremonies and rituals and its priesthood and sacrifices, was given until Christ came. It was all a shadow pointing to a substance (Col 2:17). Everything in the law was shouting, “Look to Christ!” As Paul says in Romans 10:4, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
1204:All right, let's get to work again!-This is the spirit of people of genuine substance. Those who avoid hard work or neglect the things they have to do, who just while away their time, eating, sleeping, playing, watching television-such individuals will never experience true happiness, satisfaction or joy. ~ Daisaku Ikeda, #NFDB
1205:Genius, as we tend to talk about it today, is some sort of mysterious and combustible substance that burns brightly and burns out. It's the strange gift of poets and pop stars that allows them to produce one wonderful work in their early twenties and then nothing. It is mysterious. It is there. It is gone. ~ Mark Forsyth, #NFDB
1206:I should explain how my device worked. It operated by manipulating the ether, that non-existent substance which physicists had rationalised out of their theories on the usual grounds that if it could not be converted into one of their little numbers it could not possibly be there. Einstein’s biggest mistake. ~ Iain Pears, #NFDB
1207:Organized religion is in substance a mystification, a means of hiding the wickedness of the social system. If the Christian principles of love, equality, and freedom were really practiced instead of only preached, there would be no need for a special institution(the church) to take care of those principles. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1208:For us it's always about making sure that there's substance, that things are well thought out, they're real, they're going to happen versus just haphazardly making Hollywood type announcements. So that's where we are there [on Comic-Con], just making sure that when we do something to say that it's something. ~ Thomas Tull, #NFDB
1209:there any evidence that Henry ever uttered the other famous remark attributed to him: “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” Indeed, there is no evidence that Henry ever said anything of substance or found space in his head for a single original thought. He ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1210:A person's looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1211:Falsehood is fire in stubble; it likewise turns all the light stuff around it into its own substance for a moment, one crackling blazing moment, and then dies; and all its converts are scattered in the wind, without place or evidence of their existence, as viewless as the wind which scatters them. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, #NFDB
1212:It never really felt like I had a lot of substance in my life. I had broken up with my former husband (Ron Samuels) and I kind of looked around. I didn't have a lot of friends. I had become isolated by fame. I longed for a family and some substantive relationships. Fame is a vapor. You can't grab hold of it. ~ Lynda Carter, #NFDB
1213:There is such a thing as backsliding. Sometimes the slide seems as if it is greased with the slickest substance the Devil can use. But like children who totter at the top of a slide, fearful to move, we have a heavenly Father who guards the edge and who waits at the bottom of the slide to catch us in His arms. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
1214:A world which increasingly consists of destinations without journeys between them, a world which values only “getting somewhere” as fast as possible, becomes a world without substance. One can get anywhere and everywhere, and yet the more this is possible, the less is anywhere and everywhere worth getting to. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1215:For although the sum and substance of the happy life is unalloyed freedom from care, and though the secret of such freedom is unshaken confidence, yet men gather together that which causes worry, and, while travelling life's treacherous road, not only have burdens to bear, but even draw burdens to themselves; hence ~ Seneca, #NFDB
1216:I think certain people may make it to sexual; and then others will offset that with the depth of R & B and all of its substance it has to have, in order to be called R & B or, known for an looked at to be called R & B and I kind of straddle the fence on that one because in my earlier years I was the 'Nasty Man,'. ~ Ginuwine, #NFDB
1217:The poor of the United States and of the world are your brothers and sisters in Christ. You must never be content to leave them just the crumbs from the feast. You must take of your substance, and not just of your abundance, in order to help them. And you must treat them like guests at your family table. ~ Pope John Paul II, #NFDB
1218:All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word "no." To "no" there is only one answer and that is "yes." Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1219:He has said the world is like filthy, dead and rotten meat. See how despicable is its outcome. Its best and most delicious foods turn into foul-smelling excrement. These things of this world have been made attractive from the outside, but the real substance concealed within them is hateful and loathing. ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, #NFDB
1220:Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general. ~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, #NFDB
1221:Such a conception is paradoxical if you will persist in thinking of the actual world as a collection of passive actual substances with their private characters or qualities. In that case, it must be nonsense to ask, how one such substance can form a component in the make-up of another such substance. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
1222:You thought that you were the permanent part of your own experience, the net that held it all together - until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another so quickly over time that the buildings and the trees and even the pavement turned out to have more substance than you did. ~ Nell Freudenberger, #NFDB
1223:After meeting someone by chance and throwing off a few sparks, can there be any substance to the feeling that you've known each other your whole lives? After those first few hours of conversation, can you really be sure that your connection is so uncommon that it belongs outside the bounds of time and convention? ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
1224:Another thing that escapes me is HOW to give substance to the forms. One day they look solid and 'real' and they seem to hinge upon each other and splinter and creak, fall with a thud to the bottom of the canvas and drag across the surface, and the next day they are like dust, all lightweight and just stuck there. ~ Paula Rego, #NFDB
1225:Every chemical substance, whether natural or artificial, falls into one of two major categories, according to the spatial characteristic of its form. The distinction is between those substances that have a plane of symmetry and those that do not. The former belong to the mineral, the latter to the living world. ~ Louis Pasteur, #NFDB
1226:If I expected to get the substance, I had to believe that I had already received because now faith is. In this case, the substance was the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking with other tongues. I had to believe that I had it, even though I couldn’t see it or feel it. Faith is the answer we see when we pray. ~ Norvel Hayes, #NFDB
1227:A man’s beliefs about the effects of the substance will largely be borne out. If he believes that alcohol can make him aggressive, it will, as research has shown. On the other hand, if he doesn’t attribute violence-causing powers to substances, he is unlikely to become aggressive even when severely intoxicated. ~ Lundy Bancroft, #NFDB
1228:Compulsive substance addiction can have disastrous effects because it blocks off the path to genuine emotions and feelings. The drug can supply feelings of euphoria that reanimate the creativity scotched by a cruel upbringing. But the body will not tolerate this self-alienation for the duration of an entire life. ~ Alice Miller, #NFDB
1229:I hacked my way through six forests until the moon woke up inside me. The sky's breath sang through me, dried up my body's substance. I roasted my heart in passion's fire and found Shankara! [2579.jpg] -- from I Lalla: The Poems of Lal Ded, Translated by Ranjit Hoskote
~ Lalla, I hacked my way through six forests
,#NFDB
1230:I'm sure there's more substance in the love between two adults than there is between two teenagers. There's probably more maturity, more respect, more responsibility. But no matter how different the substance of a love might be at different ages in a person's life, I know that love still has to weight the same. ~ Colleen Hoover, #NFDB
1231:In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one’s maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits. ~ Henri Fr d ric Amiel, #NFDB
1232:It’s this strangling fear that we’ll be sitting there and we’ll run out of something to say and I’ll be able to witness the exact moment someone falls out of love with me because I don’t have enough substance to keep a conversation alive over a meal. Why would you want to talk to me for the rest of your life? ~ Becky Albertalli, #NFDB
1233:Since it is the very substance of the animal, it is the blood which transports the fuel.If the animal did not habitually replace, through nourishing themselves,what they losethrough respiration, the lamp would very soon run out of oil and the animal would perish, just as the lamp goes out when it lacks fuel. ~ Antoine Lavoisier, #NFDB
1234:Stinking thinking” is the universal addiction. Substance addictions like alcohol and drugs are merely the most visible form of addiction, but actually we are all addicted to our own habitual way of doing anything, our own defenses, and most especially, our patterned way of thinking, or how we process our reality. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1235:That this world’s general sickness doth not lie
In any humour, or one certain part;
But as thou sawest it rotten at the heart,
Thou seest a hectic fever hath got hold
Of the whole substance, not to be controlled,
And that thou hast but one way, not to admit
The world’s infection, to be none of it. ~ John Donne,#NFDB
1236:what a beautiful metaphor this is for not mistaking the husk—the outer accoutrements of productivity like busyness, or a full calendar, or a clever auto-responder—not mistaking those for the kernel, the core and substance of the actual work produced. And he then says, ‘Those who work much, do not work hard.’ I ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
1237:When I looked up 'rococo' in the dictionary a while back it was defined as 'an ornamental style emphasizing the florid and the gorgeous, but lacking substance', and I couldn't help but laugh. It was so perfect. How could anything beautiful have 'substance' anyway? Pure beauty is always without meaning or morality. ~ Osamu Dazai, #NFDB
1238:A pair of workman’s brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney’s soul and missed the shadow for the substance. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
1239:If one chooses sides on emotion then the rebel is the guy to go with. He is fighting for everything men claim to honour, freedom, independance, truth, the right.......all the subjective illusions. All the eternal trigger words. We are minions of the villan of the piece. We confess the illusion and deny the substance. ~ Glen Cook, #NFDB
1240:I have a lot of friends who are trying to clean up their act, or that are still making trouble for themselves, so I’m definitely well-versed on what goes on in the mind and the heart of a person who self-destructs as their coping mechanism, and also what they’re like when you take their preferred substance away. ~ Natasha Lyonne, #NFDB
1241:Sodas use “caramel coloring” to give them that dark, delicious look. Not to be confused with real caramel, caramel color is the single most used food coloring in the world. It is created by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure-a process that produces a cancerous substance called 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI). ~ Vani Hari, #NFDB
1242:The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. ~ Ambrose Bierce, #NFDB
1243:When those who are educated using their education to exploit those who aren't. That's what the sub-prime scandal represents - people of education using it at the expense of others. At Jazz at Lincoln Center, we have 22 educational programs. Not just the word but the substance of education is guided by the arts. ~ Wynton Marsalis, #NFDB
1244:We worship unity in trinity, and trinity in unity; neither confounding the person nor dividing the substance. There is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
1245:If there is any substance in what I have said, will not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a deep debt of gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better and serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising while continuing their philanthropic work? ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1246:That our words are, as a general rule, filled, by the person to whom we address them, with a meaning which that person derives from her own substance, a meaning widely different from that which we had put into the same words when we uttered them, is a fact which the daily round of life is perpetually demonstrating. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1247:If I take a lick from so and so, I'm not going to get that many variations from it, because their phrases are just based on a scale. That's why I say Wes Montgomery has more substance than others. I find myself listening to the older players. You see one bar of theirs and you can get one hundred more licks out of it. ~ Emily Remler, #NFDB
1248:The proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause people's substance to be drained away. When their substance is drained away, they will be afflicted by heavy exactions. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and their incomes dissipated. ~ Sun Tzu, #NFDB
1249:Barack Obama is an opportunist, mostly supported by the financial institutions. He had no positions on anything. He's very intelligent. If you look at his program, almost no substance. Change, hope, what's that? I mean, he had some policies, but it was almost certain that he would give them up instantly, which he did. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1250:School children and students who love God should never say: “For my part I like mathematics”; “I like French”; “I like Greek.” They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer. ~ Simone Weil, Waiting for God (1951), p. 105., #NFDB
1251:Blood is very powerful. While meat is the substance that keeps our living souls in this physical reality, blood keeps our meat alive. Blood is liquid life. When blood escapes our bodies we are alarmed to the very core of our brains. It is life leaking out of us. It is frightening and makes red a profoundly intense color. ~ Mark Ryden, #NFDB
1252:The reality which is pretending be reality right now, impersonating reality, is just a pretty flimsy structure. There is not a lot of substance to it. You can't find people who are actively involved of affected by it. What you see is a completely different world, what you see is the world of the homeless, and so forth. ~ Jerry Garcia, #NFDB
1253:The structures of the WTO need to be reformed to increase participation. There must be a greater sense of shared ownership of the substance of the trade negotiation agenda. Decisions about issues to be negotiated, and in which sequence they should be taken, should rest with all WTO members, not only the most powerful. ~ Mary Robinson, #NFDB
1254:True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1255:The truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain all unaware of it. They bear that which has weight and substance and yet for them has no name whereby it may be evoked or called forth. They go about ignorant of the true nature of their condition, such are the wiles of truth and such its stratagems. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
1256:To whatever extent your mind is aligned with love, you will receive divine compensation for any lack in your material existence. From spiritual substance will come material manifestation. This is not just a theory; it is a fact. It is a law by which the universe operates. I call it the Law of Divine Compensation. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1257:We are in the position of the man who has only two ambitions in life. One is to invent the universal solvent which will dissolve any solid substance, and the second is to invent the universal container which will hold any liquid. Whatever this inventor does, he will be frustrated. ~ Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), #NFDB
1258:Civilizations often prosper in opposition to others. Just as Christendom achieved form and substance in opposition to Islam after the latter’s conquest of North Africa and the Levant in the seventh and eighth centuries, the West forged a definitive geopolitical paradigm in opposition to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
1259:Hope wasn't a cottage industry; it was neither a product that she could manufacture like needlepoint samplers nor a substance she could secrete, in her cautious solitude, like a maple tree producing the essence of syrup. Hope was to be found in other people, by reaching out, by taking risks, by opening her fortress heart. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1260:It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
1261:A schism has taken place among the chemists. A particular set of them in France have undertaken to remodel all the terms of the science, and to give every substance a new name, the composition, and especially the termination of which, shall define the relation in which it stands to other substances of the same family. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
1262:As I traveled toward Milan, I discovered that, with Lila set aside, I didn’t know how to give myself substance except by modeling myself on Nino. I was incapable of being a model for myself. Without him I no longer had a nucleus from which to expand outside the neighborhood and through the world, I was a pile of debris. ~ Elena Ferrante, #NFDB
1263:Dost thou grieve that thou dost weigh but so many pounds, and not three hundred rather? Just as much reason hast thou to grieve that thou must live but so many years, and not longer. For as for bulk and substance thou dost content thyself with that proportion of it that is allotted unto thee, so shouldst thou for time. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1264:I wasn't sure about that, but one never knows. Sometimes a neighborhood, like a culture or civilization, is strong enough to absorb and acculturate any number of newcomers. But I don't know if that's true around here any longer. The outward forms and appearances look the same - [...]- but the substance has been altered. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
1265:I was wrong when I said that I did not regret the past. I do regret it; I weep for that past love which can never return. Who is to blame, I do not know. Love remains, but not the old love; its place remains, but it all wasted away and has lost all strength and substance; recollections are still left, and gratitude; but... ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1266:Now I wonder what our knowledge has in common with God's knowledge according to those who treat God's knowledge... Is there anything else common to both besides the mere name? ...there is an essential distinction between His knowledge and ours, like the distinction between the substance of the heavens and that of the earth. ~ Maimonides, #NFDB
1267:The preexisting and presumed congruence and harmony of law and statute, justice and legality, substance and process dominated every detail of the legal thinking of the legislative state. Only through the acceptance of these parings was it possible to subordinate oneself to the rule of law precisely in the name of freedom. ~ Carl Schmitt, #NFDB
1268:Christian music was music that I grew up listening to that I can't say has had much of an impact on anything I have done in my adult life. Maybe Christianity has, but certainly not the bullshit Christian music I was listening to when I was 12. To me there's not much substance in that music. I don't have a message or anything. ~ J Tillman, #NFDB
1269:Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow-- it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it ~ Shakti Gawain, #NFDB
1270:I was a student, and as such you generally rely on prior models of how to make art, but these were not satisfying. Then I discovered in photos what had been missing in paintings; namely that they make a terrific variety of statements and have great substance. That is what I wanted to convey to paintings and apply to it. ~ Gerhard Richter, #NFDB
1271:I was doing my little stand up shtick, the one I did for pretty girls, so they'd like me quickly and wouldn't try too hard to actually get to know me beyond my role as wisecracking Cameron, the orphan. Maybe it was a little like flirting, but also a kind of protection: Don't get too close; I'm just jokes with substance. ~ Emily M Danforth, #NFDB
1272:The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They who preach this truth preach the gospel in whatever else they may be mistaken; but they who preach not the atonement, whatever else they declare, have missed the soul and substance of the divine message. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
1273:This World is one great City, and one if the substance whereof it is fashioned: a certain period indeed there needs must be, while these give place to those; some must perish for others to succeed; some move and some abide: yet all is full of friends--first God, then Men, whom Nature hath bound by ties of kindred each to each. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
1274:Grace, too, is not an impersonal, metaphysical substance that trickles down to people through the sacraments, as in much popular Catholicism. Grace is an irreducibly personal category, first, in that it is a personal attitude of favor from God’s heart, bringing us into relationship with him as our Savior, Friend, and Father. ~ John M Frame, #NFDB
1275:The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows, not by clarity and substance but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1276:The Tao asks you to clearly see the parallels between you and this naturally flowing substance that allows life to sustain itself. Live as water lives, since you are water. Become as contented as the fluid that animates and supports you. Let your thoughts and behaviors move smoothly in accordance with the nature of all things. ~ Wayne Dyer, #NFDB
1277:What was glimpsed in Aquarius-what was envisioned, believed in, prophesied, predicted, doubted, and forewarned-is made, in Pisces, manifest. Those solitary visions that, but a month ago belonged only to the dreamer, will now acquire the form and substance of the real. We were of our own making, and we shall be our own end. ~ Eleanor Catton, #NFDB
1278:While there may have lived an individual teacher who gave the ancient wisdom its peculiarly “Buddhist” coloring, his personality is completely overshadowed, as he must have wished it should be, by the eternal substance with which he identified himself. In other words, “the Buddha is only anthropomorphic, not a man”. ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy, #NFDB
1279:Words are capable of flying. They dart through windows, over fences, between bar stools and across courtyards. They travel rapidly from mouth to ear, from ear to mouth. And as they go, they pick up speed and weight and substance and gravity. Until they land with a scud, take seed and grow as fast as the unruliest of beanstalks. ~ Jess Kidd, #NFDB
1280:Yet the same gradual decay to which, after a certain age, all the language of psychology seems liable, has been at work even here. If you call virtue an entity, you are indeed somewhat less strongly suspected of believing it to be a substance than if you called it a being; but you are by no means free from the suspicion. ~ John Stuart Mill, #NFDB
1281:You have the resources within you, and now you know the elements needed in incubation to make your faith usable. Get a clear-cut goal and objective. Have a desire that burns to the boiling point, then pray until you have the substance, the assurance. Then begin to speak the word about which you have been given assurance. ~ David Yonggi Cho, #NFDB
1282:At long last, we may be returning to the original two-sided sense of the word virus, which originally signified either a life-giving substance or a deadly venom. Viruses are indeed exquisitely deadly, but they have provided the world with some of its most important innovations. Creation and destruction join together once more. ~ Carl Zimmer, #NFDB
1283:Even a song on the radio that completely lacks substance is there for a reason. Sometimes, people need a break from cold reality; the song that you really don't have to put that much thought power into can be just as entertaining as something that might take you on a three- or four-minute cruise through the depth of reality. ~ Jamey Johnson, #NFDB
1284:The powerful though vague and unsubstantiated presumption is that something has been found out that renders a spiritual understanding of reality in the manner of Jesus simply foolish to those who are “in the know.” But when it comes time to say exactly what it is that has been found out, nothing of substance is forthcoming. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
1285:The torrent of verbiage comes about because professional politicians are more concerned with spin than substance, the media never cease to howl for ‘something’ to be done after every mishap, the lobbyists ensure that the small print protects the vested interests they serve, and the lawyers profit from the whole sorry mess.5 ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1286:A love with no object is a true love.
All else, shadow without substance.
Have you seen someone fall in love
with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. Leave partial loves and find one that’s whole.
Where is someone who can do that?
They’re so rare, those hearts that carry the blessing and lavish it over everything. ~ Rumi,#NFDB
1287:clingy.” It’s an ugly word, isn’t it, that describes the honey of the heart as a sticky, pestersome substance that won’t brush off. And to whatever degree clinginess is not simply a mean appellation for the most precious thing on earth, it involves an unacceptably incessant demand for attention, approbation, ardor in return. ~ Lionel Shriver, #NFDB
1288:The nocturnal glory of being great without being
anything! The sombre majesty of splendours no one
knows… And I suddenly experience the sublime feeling
of a monk in the wilderness or of a hermit in his retreat,
acquainted with the substance of Christ in the sands and
in the caves of withdrawal from the world. ~ Fernando Pessoa,#NFDB
1289:When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership, the Savior's condensed statement of the substance of both law and Gospel, 'Thou shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself' that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
1290:Make for thyself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to thee, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell thyself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1291:My brother, this "religiosity" is not the standard by which true men of God are measured. In all the rituals that Islam has, deeply imbedded in those rituals are principles of truth. And sometimes we get lost in the religiosity; we get lost in the "symbol," but we miss the substance of the truth that is buried in the ritual! ~ Louis Farrakhan, #NFDB
1292:Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long the kernel is to exist or not; in which, accordingly, the stunted, diseased and dull witted jailer is lord, and indicates the moment at which his distinguished prisoner shall die. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1293:Oh God, it's such a big world right now for artists. There are as many possibilities as you can have time for, getting your music out there with the internet, and Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, and everything that you have, there is a way to spread the word. To me, the first thing you have to have is substance and content and real depth. ~ Amy Ray, #NFDB
1294:Yet how can such contraries pass into each other? By what alchemy shall this lead of mortality be turned into that gold of divine Being? But if they are not in their essence contraries? If they are manifestations of one Reality, identical in substance? Then indeed a divine transmutation becomes conceivable.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,#NFDB
1295:LSD should be treated as a sacred drug and receive corresponding preparation, preparation of quite a different kind than other psychotropic agents. It is one kind of thing if you have a pain-relieving substance or some euphoriant and (another to) have an agent that engages the very essence of human beings, their consciousness. ~ Albert Hofmann, #NFDB
1296:A long-term substance abuser, a few months before his death, penned this poem: Went downtown, Hastings and Main, looking for relief from the pain. All I did was find a ticket on a one-way train. ... Give me peace before I die. The track is laid out so well; we all live our private hell; just more tickets on the hell-bound train. ~ Gabor Mate, #NFDB
1297:But I have believed always and taught always that what God demands from man is his utmost effort to cooperate and understand. I have taught the imagination, first and most; I have made knowledge, knowledge of what man is and what man's world is and what man may be, which is the adventure of mankind, the substance of all my teaching. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1298:My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.” “But ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
1299:Ordinarily all desires exist in the second state of consciousness, the dreaming state. Desire is a dream and to work for a dream is doomed from the very beginning, because a dream can never become real. Even if sometimes you feel it has become almost real, it never becomes real - a dream by nature is empty. It has no substance in it. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1300:Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
1301:There's a possible qualification I can make here about a non-pantheist god that is in some way tenable, and that is the idea of a god that has in some way discharged the universe from its own substance (I associate this with the word 'tzimtzum'), possibly even by a form of suicide - a suicide that might have been the Big Bang. ~ Quentin S Crisp, #NFDB
1302:You just had to know how to do it, and when to do it, and most important of all, why to do it. Powerful substance like this, Lowell would explain, it wasn't there just for any casual jack-off recreational urge. It was there to allow you to do things. To empower you, he said, so you could do things and, best of all, finish them. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
1303:LSD is no longer playing a bad role in the drug scene and psychiatrists are again trying to submit their proposals for research with this substance to the health authorities. I hope that LSD will again become available in the normal way, for the medical profession. Then it could play the role it really should, a beneficial role. ~ Albert Hofmann, #NFDB
1304:On the one hand, it is in and through creative minds that the community fulfils itself at its best and reaches its highest forms; and on the other, it is from them that the community recovers the social substance with which it had nourished them, transfigured by their creative alchemy into a still higher social substance. ~ Salvador de Madariaga, #NFDB
1305:PASTA CON LE SARDE In olive oil sauté chopped onions, slivered fennel, saffron, golden raisins, and pine nuts. In the bottom of the same skillet melt cleaned fillets of sardines and anchovies. Add a splash of white wine, season, cover, and simmer until flavors mingle. Toss with pasta of substance such as bucatini or perciatelli. ~ Jason Matthews, #NFDB
1306:The death of a dream can in fact serve as the vehicle that endows it with new form, with reinvigorated substance, a fresh flow of ideas, and splendidly revitalized color. In short, the power of a certain kind of dream is such that death need not indicate finality at all but rather signify a metaphysical and metaphorical leap forward. ~ Aberjhani, #NFDB
1307:By the understanding of the impermanence, of subjection to grief and of the unreality of substance of all formations arises the light of the true wisdom and without it there can be no veritable illumination. The gate of the Way is found in this understanding. Whoever strives not to come to it, is torn into pieces by death. ~ Fo-shu-hing-tsan-king, #NFDB
1308:Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1309:Throughout history, great philosophical minds have grappled with the nature of identity. What makes a person a person? What combination of memory, history, imagination, experience, subjectivity, genetic substance, and that ineffable thing called the soul makes us who we are? Is who we are the same as who we believe ourselves to be? ~ Dani Shapiro, #NFDB
1310:Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists...it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status. ~ Lewis F Powell Jr, #NFDB
1311:He (Rene Descartes) posited the existence of two parallel yet separate domains of reality: res cogitans, the thinking substance of the subjective mind whose essence is thought, and res extensa, or the extended substance of the material world. Mental stuff and material (including brain) stuff are absolutely distinct, he argued. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz, #NFDB
1312:If she were religious, she would call it the soul. It is more than the sum of her intellect and her emotions, more than the sum of her experiences, though it runs like veins of brilliant metal through all three. It is an inner faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world because it is made of the same substance ~ Michael Cunningham, #NFDB
1313:It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God. Frequently this is because they have thought of God solely in terms of thunderings at Sinai without pondering substance. . . . ~ Neal A Maxwell, #NFDB
1314:Remember, too , that the Earth does not fully understand us. It looks upon human beings and sees short-lived, fragile creatures, puzzlingly detached in substance and awareness from the planet on which their lives depend, who do not understand the harm they tried to do--perhaps because they are so short-lived and fragile and detached. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
1315:The indigestible parts of giant squid, in particular their beaks, accumulate in sperm whales’ stomachs into the substance known as ambergris, which is used as a fixative in perfumes. The next time you spray on Chanel Number 5 (assuming you do), you may wish to reflect that you are dousing yourself in distillate of unseen sea monster. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1316:Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, #NFDB
1317:Angel?" I said. "Baby penguins eat a regurgitated mixture of partially digested fish, krill, and an oily substance form their fathers' stomachs. Are you willing to eat a bunch of raw fish and krill, and then barf it back up into a baby penguin's cute, cheeping mouth? Like, every hour?" Sometimes my crushing logic astounds even me. ~ James Patterson, #NFDB
1318:Did he have a story, one where his wife was either a little bit cracked or an outright villain? I thought yes. And did people believe it? The answer to that one was easy. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking 1958, 1985, or 2011. In America, where surface has always passed for substance, people always believe guys like Frank Dunning. 4 ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1319:Indeed, Wiener was the first information-age forebear to consider information, not as a tangible good to be bought and sold, but as “content”—whether that content was an ephemeral commodity like the news, a body of scientific knowledge, or the living substance of everyday experience human beings extracted from the world around them. To ~ Flo Conway, #NFDB
1320:The liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually we become what we say we are - followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God ~ Joan D Chittister, #NFDB
1321:Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance. We may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger; or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself; or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us. ~ Sydney J Harris, #NFDB
1322:Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow-- it has no real substance of its
own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to
disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or
any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a
shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it ~ Shakti Gawain,#NFDB
1323:He looks like the bloke next door, was Sparks's first thought. But then, monsters rarely look the part. You hope you'll be able to see the evil shining out of them. It would make police work a damn sight easier, he often said. But evil was a slippery substance, glimpsed only occasionally, and all the more horrifying for that, he knew. ~ Fiona Barton, #NFDB
1324:It has been my face. It's got older still, or course, but less, comparatively, than it would otherwise have done. It's scored with deep, dry wrinkles, the skin is cracked. But my face hasn't collapsed, as some with fine feature have done. It's kept the same contours, but its substance has been laid waste. I have a face laid waste. ~ Marguerite Duras, #NFDB
1325:I think hope is not simply looking around and saying that everything’s great – that’s just ridiculous. For hope to have substance, it has to acknowledge the pain. But hope is saying that’s not the final story. It’s not saying pain doesn’t exist, but it’s saying there’s not a period at the end of that sentence. It’s still being written. ~ Tim Foreman, #NFDB
1326:Obama is very much an establishment sort of guy. The whole image of him as a transcendent figure was based on style rather than substance. If you actually looked at what he said, not how he said it, he said very establishment things. He's a moderate, cautious, ameliorative guy. He tends to gravitate toward Beltway conventional wisdom. ~ Paul Krugman, #NFDB
1327:Oh that God would give me the thing which I long for! That before I go hence and am no more seen, I may see a people wholly devoted to God, crucified to the world, and the world crucified to them. A people truly given up to God in body, soul and substance! How cheerfully would I then say, 'Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.' ~ John Wesley, #NFDB
1328:Philosophy is the science of estimating values. The superiority of any state or substance over another is determined by philosophy. By assigning a position of primary importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed, philosophy thus becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the realm of speculative thought. ~ Manly Hall, #NFDB
1329:Brenda reappeared in Lycra Zoom shorts and what was commonly called a sports bra. She was limbs and shoulders and muscles and substance, and while the professional models glared at her size (not her height—most of them were six-footers too), Myron thought that she stood out like a bursting supernova next to, well, gaseous entities. The ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1330:Then I thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the possible results of practical immortality, informing the substance of a mortal who yet drew her strength from Earth, and in whose human bosom passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world around her the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly. ~ H Rider Haggard, #NFDB
1331:A famous poem of Sa‘dī states: The children of Adam are members of a single body, For from the moment of creation they were made of one substance. When fate causes pain in any member, The other members cannot remain still. O thou who hath no sorrow in seeing the sorrow of others, Thou art not worthy of being called a human being. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
1332:Lies, so often misleading and which form the substance of all conversations, are less effective in covering up a feeling of dislike or of self-interest, or a visit one would rather people did not know about, or a one-day fling one wants to conceal from one's wife - than a good reputation is in utterly overshadowing disreputable habits. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1333:Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
1334:/Farsi Then said another -- "Surely not in vain My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en, That He who subtly wrought me into Shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again." [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam / Translated by Edward FitzGerald
~ Omar Khayyam, 61 - Then said another -- Surely not in vain
,#NFDB
1335:I look around me and see all the problems.
I know people aren't living the gospel.
I know they are too busy.
The world is too loud.
The sounds you hear in the hall or not
the substance of love and kindness.
I hear gossip, I hear spite, I hear fear.
I do not hear the gospel.
Except inside me, I can feel it there. ~ David Levithan,#NFDB
1336:In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
1337:I took the book and glanced at the page Guy was reading. I quoted, ‘ “The rich man’s substance is the wellspring of the poor man’s living.” Ah yes, that theory, that as the rich grow richer their wealth trickles down to the poor like sand. Well, I have been practising law twenty-five years and all I have seen is it trickle ever upwards.’ I ~ C J Sansom, #NFDB
1338:I've learned a few things from the tea party, both the political one and the one in Alice in Wonderland. From the first, I learned that you can make people angrily shuffle in roughly the same direction if you appeal to their beliefs in poorly defined ways. From the second, I learned that England has some sort of substance called treacle. ~ Lore Sjoberg, #NFDB
1339:A different image came to me a few weeks ago. The unknown thing to be known appeared to me as some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration... the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to happen, nothing moves, the water is so far off you hardly hear it... yet finally it surrounds the resistant substance. ~ Alexander Grothendieck, #NFDB
1340:I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1341:I assume the senses crave sources of maximum information, that the eye benefits by exercise, stretch, and expansion towards materials of complexity and substance, . . . conditions which alert the total sensibility - cast it almost in stress - extend insight and response, the basic responsive range of empathetic-kinesthetic vitality. ~ Carolee Schneemann, #NFDB
1342:This was the substance of every moment, she realized: the body - never certain if the next lungful would be its last - hovering for a tiny time between cessation and continuance. And in that space out of time, between a breath expelled and another drawn, the miraculous was easy, because neither flesh nor reason has laid their edicts there. ~ Clive Barker, #NFDB
1343:I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to the light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet cannot succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can't get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful... ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
1344:In fact, though their acquaintance had been so short, they had guessed, as always happens between lovers, everything of any importance about each other in two seconds at the utmost, and it now remained only to fill in such unimportant details as what they were called; where they lived; and whether they were beggars or people of substance. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
1345:Living in the rural South, you sometimes feel trapped, like you don't have any options. It grinds people down, and of course it leads to substance abuse. I see it all around me. So many people in my family, probably more than 50 percent, have had substance abuse problems, either currently or in the past. It's so personal and immediate to me. ~ Jesmyn Ward, #NFDB
1346:Poetry is only secondarily about words. Primarily, it is about truth. I dealt with the Ding an Sich, the substance behind the shadow, weaving powerful concepts, similes, and connections the way an engineer would raise a skyscraper with the whiskered-alloy skeleton being constructed long before the glass and plastic and chromaluminum appears. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
1347:Suppose that the US really is trying to get rid of drugs in Colombia. Does Colombia then have the right to fumigate tobacco farms in Kentucky? They are producing a lethal substance far more dangerous than cocaine. More Colombians die from tobacco-related illnesses than Americans die from cocaine. Of course, Colombia has no right to do that. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1348:Therefore, criticism has to direct itself against itself, and against the mysterious Substance in which it has up to now hid itself. In this way criticism must resolve things such that the development of this Substance drives itself forward to the Universality and Certainty of the Idea of its actual existence, the Eternal Self-consciousness. ~ Bruno Bauer, #NFDB
1349:Theurgy is ritual magic - but magic that enacts the will of God, not of the magician. It brings divine energies down to earth, elevating and spiritualizing the world of matter, including the very being and substance of the participants. Each time the believer takes part with attention and devotion, he or she becomes more attuned to God. ~ Richard Smoley, #NFDB
1350:True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1351:We thus see the artist performing a dual function: first, furthering the integrity of the process of self-expression in the language of art; and secondly, protecting the organic continuity of art in relation to its own laws. For like any organic substance, art must always be in a state of flux, the tempo being slow or fast. But it must move. ~ Mark Rothko, #NFDB
1352:Nothing is ever born out of fear. Love gives birth, love is creative; fear is impotent. It has never created anything. It cannot create anything because it has no substance. But it can destroy your whole life, it can surround you like a dark cloud, it can exploit all of your energies. It will not allow you to move into any deep experience of beauty. ~ Osho, #NFDB
1353:The collective consciousness and all its branches of personal consciousness, through beliefs and thoughts, collide or smash energy, slowing down its vibration to create what we see as the physical world. Our physical reality has no more material substance than a typical belief, thought or dream. It is merely slower vibrating energy. ~ Russell Anthony Gibbs, #NFDB
1354:The whole world is conscious. It's just that we become conscious at times, and you become conscious when you lose a parent, or just a loved one, period - a wife, a brother, you know. You wake up and say, "Man, it's real. I don't need this pimp gangster stuff anymore, I need something with a little more substance." And there is marketing for that. ~ KRS One, #NFDB
1355:Hence a Buddhist meditator, while benefiting from the refinement of consciousness he has achieved, will be able to see these meditative experiences for what they are; and he will further know that they are without any abiding substance that could be attributed to a deity manifesting itself to his mind. ~ Nyanaponika Thera, "Buddhism and the God-Idea" (1962), #NFDB
1356:it may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember ~ P L Travers, #NFDB
1357:Only perhaps in the United States, which alone of countries can do without governing,every man being at least able to live, and move off into the wilderness, let Congress jargon as it will,can such a form of so-called Government continue for any length of time to torment men with the semblance, when the indispensable substance is not there. ~ Thomas Carlyle, #NFDB
1358:The EU gave both political support and quotidian substance to the values inherent in NATO—those values being, generally, the rule of law over arbitrary fiat, legal states over ethnic nations, and the protection of the individual no matter his race or religion. Democracy, after all, is less about elections than about impartial institutions. ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
1359:The Magician therefore represents the state of concentration without effort, i.e. the state of consciousness where the centre directing the will has “descended” (in reality it is elevated) from the brain to the rhythmic system, where the “oscillations of the mental substance” are reduced to silence and to rest, no longer hindering concentration. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1360:Substance abuse is a very real trap. Drugs and alcohol are very much like an abusive lover who treats you well at first and then beats you up, apologizes, gives you nice treatment for a while, and then beats you up again. The trap is in trying to hang in there for the good while trying to overlook the bad. Wrong. This can never work. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Est s, #NFDB
1361:The eruption had hurled the thing out of its normal environment, deep down in the flaming atmosphere of the sun. It was a miracle that it had survived its journey through space; already it must be dying, as the forces that controlled its huge, invisible body lost their hold over the electrified gas which was the only substance it possessed. ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
1362:181. Pharmakon means drug, but as Jacques Derrida and others have pointed out, the word in Greek famously refuses to designate whether poison or cure. It holds both in the bowl. In the dialogues Plato uses the word to refer to everything from an illness, its cause, its cure, a recipe, a charm, a substance, a spell, artificial color, and paint. ~ Maggie Nelson, #NFDB
1363:Definitely, and it's getting more spiritual. Pretty soon I believe people will have to rely on music to get some kind of peace of mind, or satisfaction, or direction, actually. More so than politics, the big ego scene. You know it's an art of words... Meaning nothing. Therefore you will have to get an earthier substance, like music or the arts. ~ Jimi Hendrix, #NFDB
1364:He fumbles at your spirit As players at the keys Before they drop full music on; He stuns you by degrees. Prepares your brittle substance For the ethereal blow by fainter hammers, further heard, Then nearer, then so slow Your breath has time to straighten Your brain to bubble cool,- Deals one imperial thunderbolt That scalps your naked soul. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
1365:Matter is capable of infinite subdivision...All matter is in a state of perpetual activity [motion], whether the substance under consideration be inanimate or animated, visible or invisible...There is no dividing of matter and force into two distinct terms, as they both are ONE. FORCE is liberated matter. MATTER is force in bondage. ~ John Ernst Worrell Keely, #NFDB
1366:The ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church. ~ Pope Benedict XVI, #NFDB
1367:It’s like my life came to a halt at age twenty, Tsukuru Tazaki thought, as he sat on the bench in Shinjuku Station. The days that came afterward had no real weight or substance. The years passed by, quietly, like a gentle breeze. Leaving no scars behind, no sorrow, rousing no strong emotions, leaving no happiness or memories worth mentioning. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1368:Teen girls are figuring out what they want out of life and who they want to be. They are becoming more and more independent, and are starting to make decisions that will affect them now and into the future. Combine this new responsibility with all the stress and pressures in their lives and the result, unfortunately, can be substance abuse. ~ Atoosa Rubenstein, #NFDB
1369:... In all is the one Self, the one Divine is all; all are in the Divine, all are the Divine and there is nothing else in the universe, - this thought or this faith is the whole background until it becomes the whole substance of the consciousness of the worker. ...
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Sacrifice and the Lord of the Sacrifice [112] [T1],#NFDB
1370:Thou talk'st of nothing." "True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasty; Which is as thin of substance as the air; And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face t the dew-dropping south. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
1371:young people at Western schools and universities have been given the idea of a liberal education, without the substance of historical knowledge. They have been taught isolated ‘modules’, not narratives, much less chronologies. They have been trained in the formulaic analysis of document excerpts, not in the key skill of reading widely and fast. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
1372:The dichotomy of the gun-toting, substance-abusing queer seeking spiritual refuge might strike some as anticlimactic. But William Burroughs was not what he appeared to be to many of his fans. The work which so many revere as biblical texts in the church of addiction were always seen by the writer himself as cautionary rather than visionary. ~ William S Burroughs, #NFDB
1373:A TIP FOR MEN
The more selfies a woman takes, the more selfish and self-absorbed she is. She produces serial images of herself because she lacks true substance and has nothing else to offer. And also, any woman who holds her head up way too high is trying to breathe from her own pollution.
A TIP FOR WOMEN:
The same goes for men. ~ Suzy Kassem,#NFDB
1374:One may not be able to fulfill a fatherly role with one's own child, but on the other hand, and this goes for me as well, one might still be a "father of choice" to someone else out there in the world. Fatherhood is something that can be shared worldwide. Meaning that in terms of the substance of a father's role, perhaps we are all pseudo-fathers. ~ Mamoru Hosoda, #NFDB
1375:Evil, Mr. Tagomi thought. Yes, it is. Are we to assist it in gaining power, in order to save our lives? Is that the paradox of our earthly situation? I cannot face this dilemma, Mr. Tagomi said to himself. That man should have to act in such moral ambiguity. There is no Way in this; all is muddled. All chaos of light and dark, shadow and substance. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
1376:History has the cruel reality of a nightmare, and the grandeur of man consists in his making beautiful and lasting works out of the real substance of that nightmare. Or, to put it another way, it consists in transforming the nightmare into vision; in freeing ourselves from the shapeless horror of reality--if only for an instant--by means of creation. ~ Octavio Paz, #NFDB
1377:I hate solitude, but I'm afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1378:Respect for the unknown is the attitude of those who, instead of raping nature, woo her until she gives herself. But what she gives, even then, is not the cold clarity of the surface but the warm inwardness of the body - a mysteriousness which is not merely a negation, a blank absence of knowledge, but the positive substance which we call wonderful. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1379:You said to me once that you weren’t what I dreamed of. You were right. You surpass everything I dreamed of. Even the rot in you that’s caused you to do shameful things. Some men let the rot and guilt fester into something ugly beyond words. Few men can turn it into worth and substance. If you’re gods’ blessed for no other reason, it’s for that. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
1380:If the moon and earth were not retained in their orbits by their animal force or some other equivalent, the earth would mount to the moon by a fifty-fourth part of their distance, and the moon fall towards the earth through the other fifty-three parts, and they would there meet, assuming, however, that the substance of both is of the same density. ~ Johannes Kepler, #NFDB
1381:I mean, the Ace of Spades example that Jonah Goldberg remembered here (and that made me remember it, too), is that Chris Matthews interview with [Barack] Obama, during the run-up to Obamacare. Not one question about it. And when you stop and think, there never is for the Democrat. The media never questions the substance of anything the Democrats do. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
1382:Let us today seek to find that place within each of us where dreams are made, where our highest aspirations take shape. Let us confirm the power of our humanity by giving architecture and substance to the dreams we have for our nation, so that the promised land of social and economic justice that is within our dreams will soon be within our sight. ~ Dennis Kucinich, #NFDB
1383:... you are a microcosm of Me - the Divine All, the Holy Everything, the Sum and Substance. .. the Alpha and the Omega. .. Yes, I am God, as you now understand Him. I am Goddess as you now comprehend Her, I am the Conceiver and the Creator of Everything you now know and experience, and you are My children. .. even as I am the child of another. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
1384:Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
1385:A fiery shield is God's Word; of more substance and purer than gold, which, tried in the fire, loses nought of its substance, but resists and overcomes all the fury of the fiery heat; even so, he that believes God's Word overcomes all, and remains secure everlastingly, against all misfortunes; for this shield fears nothing, neither hell nor the devil. ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
1386:Indeed, grief is not the clear melancholy the young believe it. It is like a siege in a tropical city. The skin dries and the throat parches as though one were living in the heat of the desert; water and wine taste warm in the mouth, and food is of the substance of the sand; one snarls at one's company; thoughts prick one through sleep like mosquitoes. ~ Rebecca West, #NFDB
1387:Over the years, certain stories in the history of a family take hold. They're passed from generation to generation, gaining substance and meaning along the way. You have to learn to sift through them, separating fact from conjecture, the likely from the implausible. Here is what I know: Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones. ~ Christina Baker Kline, #NFDB
1388:She loved everything that grew in God’s earth, even the weeds. With one exception. If she found a blade of nut-grass in her yard it was like the Second Battle of the Marne: she swooped down upon it with a tin tub and subjected it to blasts from beneath with a poisonous substance she said was so powerful it’d kill us all if we didn’t stand out of the way. ~ Harper Lee, #NFDB
1389:The fraction of infinity, of that vast abyss of time, allotted to each of us. Absorbed in an instant into eternity. The fraction of all substance, and all spirit. The fraction of the whole earth you crawl about on. Keep all that in mind, and don’t treat anything as important except doing what your nature demands, and accepting what Nature sends you. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1390:In the process of assimilation, the crystalline vibration of food interacts with our total oscillating crystalline system. Anyone familiar with the science of kinesiology (muscle testing) knows that when a specific food substance is brought within the body's vibratory field, it may immediately weaken, strengthen, or not appreciably affect the person. ~ Gabriel Cousens, #NFDB
1391:Metaphysics is the study of the most general nature and basic structure of reality, and therefore the concepts of metaphysics, concepts like time, space, identity, resemblance, substance, property, fact, event, composition, possibility, etc., are the most fundamental concepts. Thus metaphysics is the most fundamental theoretical discipline. ~ Gonzalo Rodriguez Pereyra, #NFDB
1392:Nobody from the Amazing Kingdom bothered to check with previous employers, such as the New York City Police Department, to inquire about allegations of bribery, moral turpitude, substance abuse, witness tampering and the unnecessary use of deadly force, to wit, the pistol-whipping of a young man suspected of shoplifting a bag of cheese-flavored Doritos. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
1393:The old Hadley house was abandoned now. Had been empty for months. But Peter knew it wasn’t empty. For one thing he’d left part of himself in it. Not a hand or a nose or a foot, thank God. But things that had no substance but fantastic weight. He’d left his hope there, and trust. He’d left his faith there too. What little he had, he’d lost. There. Peter ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
1394:The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either,--black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
1395:Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on Earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1396:If we claim heritage in Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton, we also acknowledge that it was for liberties guaranteed Englishmen by sacred charters our fathers triumphantly fought. While wisely rejecting throne and caste and privilege and an Established Church in their new-born state, they adopted the substance of English liberty and the body of English law. ~ Chauncey Depew, #NFDB
1397:Scheele independently discovered eight elements—chlorine, fluorine, manganese, barium, molybdenum, tungsten, nitrogen, and oxygen—but received credit for none of them in his lifetime. He had an unfortunate habit of tasting every substance he worked with, as a way of familiarizing himself with its properties, and eventually the practice caught up with him. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1398:Aristotelian hylomorphic anthropology of soul and body as form and matter of a single substance, as distinct from a Platonic or Cartesian two-substance dualism, or simple materialism or simple immaterialism or spiritualism. All three alternatives to Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism are logically problematic as well as not in accord with our experience. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
1399:Our native susceptibilities and acquired tastes determine which of the many qualities in an object shall most impress us, and be most clearly recalled. One man remembers the combustible properties of a substance, which to another is memorable for its polarising property; to one man a stream is so much water-power, to another a rendezvous for lovers. ~ George Henry Lewes, #NFDB
1400:She was ... the arch personification of the power of Space, Time, and Matter, within whose bound all beings arise and die: the substance of their bodies, configurator of their lives and thoughts, and receiver of their dead. And everything having form or name-including God personified as good or evil, merciful or wrathful-was her child, within her womb. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1401:You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid ~ Oscar Wilde, #NFDB
1402:He earned a national reputation managing large political campaigns, turning them into media-driven extravaganzas with emphasis on sound bites and perception over any kind of substance, and his win rate was astonishingly high. That probably said more for the gullibility of the modern voter than the high standards of the modern candidate, Michelle thought. ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
1403:Now I wonder what our knowledge has in common with God's knowledge according to those who treat God's knowledge... Is there anything else common to both besides the mere name? ...there is an essential distinction between His knowledge and ours, like the distinction between the substance of the heavens and that of the earth. ~ Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), #NFDB
1404:Strange people. The kind that leave the merest blur behind them, soon vanished. Hutte and I often used to talk about these traceless beings. They spring up out of nothing one fine day and return there, having sparkled a little. Beauty queens. Gigolos. Butterflies. Most of them, even when alive, had no more substance than steam which will never condense. ~ Patrick Modiano, #NFDB
1405:Think of the Father as a spring of life begetting the Son like a river and the Holy Ghost like a sea, for the spring and the river and sea are all one nature. Think of the Father as a root, and of the Son as a branch, and the Spirit as a fruit, for the substance in these three is one. The Father is a sun with the Son as rays and the Holy Ghost as heat. ~ John of Damascus, #NFDB
1406:A disproportionate number of retailers, I noted, offered nothing but translucent ochre trinkets: back in the Königsberg centuries, the city made its millions from amber – a substance whose precious allure I have never fully grasped, and which to my mind was very fortunate to have retained its prized aesthetic appeal following the invention of barley sugar. But ~ Tim Moore, #NFDB
1407:Over the years, certain stories in the history of family take hold. They're passes from generation to generation, gaining substance and meaning along the way. You have to learn to sift through them, separating fact from conjecture, the likely form the implausible.
Here is what I know: Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones. ~ Christina Baker Kline,#NFDB
1408:Curiously, growing Papaver somniferum in America is legal—unless, that is, it is done in the knowledge that you are growing a drug, when, rather magically, the exact same physical act becomes the felony of “manufacturing a controlled substance.” Evidently the Old Testament and the criminal code both make a connection between forbidden plants and knowledge. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
1409:First of all, in principle, I'm against physician-assisted suicide, and secondly, I believe it is the prerogative of the federal government to control drug rules. And the idea of using a controlled substance to end somebody's life is something I don't agree with. I can see the idea of using controlled substances to ease somebody's pain. That makes sense. ~ George W Bush, #NFDB
1410:He had, in odd ways, given it to every moment of his life, and had perhaps given it most fully when he was unaware of his giving. It was a passion neither of the mind nor of the flesh; rather, it was a force that comprehended them both, as if they were but the matter of love, its specific substance. To a woman or to a poem, it said simply: Look! I am alive. ~ John Williams, #NFDB
1411:Living did not become a problem until Man refused to listen to the inner voice. When he returns to listening He will seize to labor for the means of living, but will work for the joy of creating. Through His word He will find that He can move upon the all loving and all enfolding substance of God, and bring into visibility every idea he holds in thought. ~ Baird T Spalding, #NFDB
1412:The apparent separation of experience into two essential parts is similar to imagining that a screen is divided in two when two images appear on it side by side. If thinking imagines that the screen is only contained in only one of the images, then thinking will also have to imagine a substance that is ‘not the screen’, out of which the second image is made. ~ Rupert Spira, #NFDB
1413:As a kid growing up in the 1950s I became acutely aware of the changes taking place in American culture and I must say I didn't much like it. I witnessed the debasement of architecture, and I could see a decline in the quality of things like comic books and toys, things made for kids. Old things seemed to have more life, more substance, more humanity in them. ~ Robert Crumb, #NFDB
1414:Good friends, how then are meditation and wisdom alike? They are like the lamp and the light it gives forth. If there is a lamp there is light; if there is no lamp there is no light. The lamp is the substance of light; the light is the function of the lamp. Thus, although they have two names, in substance they are not two. Meditation and wisdom are also like this. ~ Huineng, #NFDB
1415:The sleeve covered its appendages well until it reached outward to Grady. Instead of a hand, several dark green and black-splotched tentacles spilled out of the sleeve. They snaked through the air toward Grady’s face. They glistened in the early morning light and long strands of a mucous-like substance dripped from them and clung like shiny webs to its robe. ~ Brian Barnett, #NFDB
1416:Things outside seemed also fixed in mute expectation, so as not to disturb the moonlight which, duplicating each of them and throwing it back by the extension, forwards, of a shadow denser and more concrete than its substance, had made the whole landscape seem at once thinner and longer, like a map which, after being folded up, is spread out upon the ground. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1417:We moved around a lot at first as a kid, and then I was on the road at 17, and new in town by the time I got to LA, and then famous again with that whirlwind. I did really want substance in my life, and when I stopped with the road for my children, it was really because I didn't want to miss out. It wasn't just selflessness. I didn't want to miss out on that. ~ Lynda Carter, #NFDB
1418:Divine Love is the primary Quality of God. Divine Love is an emotion of God, and as such is a substance that God can transmit to humans. Divine Love can be received by the human soul if the human soul exercises its Free Will to receive Divine Love, and desires to eradicate all those emotions within itself that prevents the flow and demonstration of Love. ~ Padma Aon Prakasha, #NFDB
1419:If passion was a substance I would say it is dark brown, and then blood red. It's like wet grass, tons of it soaked in mud. It's warm and it stinks like shit and it's unaccountably and endlessly good. It's thick and it goes on for miles and it isn't so much deep as bottomless and it holds you in its grip, you never drown. And then it goes. That's all you know. ~ Eileen Myles, #NFDB
1420:Sharing food is a metaphor for all giving. When we offer someone food, we are not just giving that person something to eat; we are giving far more. We give strength, health, beauty, clarity of mind, and even life, because none of those things would be possible without food. So when we feed another, this is what we are offering: the substance of life itself. ~ Sharon Salzberg, #NFDB
1421:It often happens that in situations of unrestraint, where there is no thought of the eye of criticism, real feeling glides into a mode of manifestation not easily distinguishable from rodomontade. A veneer of affectation overlies a bulk of truth, with the evil consequence, if perceived, that the substance is estimated by the superficies, and the whole rejected. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
1422:My homeland,' says the guest, 'no longer exists. My homeland was Poland, Vienna, this house, the barracks in the city, Galicia, and Chopin. What’s left? Whatever mysterious substance held it all together no longer works. Everything’s come apart. My homeland was a feeling, and that feeling was mortally wounded. When that happens, the only thing to do is go away. ~ S ndor M rai, #NFDB
1423:Nothing can be plainer, than that the motions, changes, decays, and dissolutions, which we hourly see befall natural bodies (and which is what we mean by the course of nature), cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance: such a being therefore is indissoluble by the force of nature, that is to say, the soul of man is naturally immortal. ~ George Berkeley, #NFDB
1424:We can readily see the function of nature, how it reconciles discordant things in such a fashion that it reduces all the differences to unity and combines them into one body and one substance: and also it combines them in plants and in seeds, and by the joining of male and female engenders beings according to the natural course.' —Fioretto della Bibbia ~ Carlo Ginzburg, #NFDB
1425:An artifact can be thought of as a meeting point—an “interface” in today’s terms—between an “inner” environment, the substance and organization of the artifact itself, and an “outer” environment, the surroundings in which it operates. If the inner environment is appropriate to the outer environment, or vice versa, the artifact will serve its intended purpose. ~ Herbert A Simon, #NFDB
1426:I do believe the most of me
Floats under water; and men see
Above the wave a jagged small
Mountain of ice, and that is all.
Only the depths of other peaks
May know my substance when it speaks,
And steadfast through the grinding jam
Remain aware of what I am.
Myself, I think, shall never know
How far beneath the wave I go. ~ Edna St Vincent Millay,#NFDB
1427:I've been working to define my individual style and vision and I believe it is reflected in the music. I feel better mentally, physically and spiritually so I've brought that to the music. I still make love songs so there are some messages in the music about men appreciating their women. I'm also still bringing party and club hits but with more substance in the music. ~ Chingy, #NFDB
1428:I was aware of the possible biases you could get as a commercial director, like being too concerned about the technical aspects of the form rather than anything of substance. If you keep working in commercials, you can get trapped in a very superficial way of thinking. I always used commercials as an exercise for filmmaking, like going to the gym. ~ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, #NFDB
1429:Marijuana is not addictive. People are the addicts and they will find a substance or a belief that will feed the addiction they need to make their day go away. Meaning one looks for a substance that allows them not to live with who and what they really are. To stop addiction we must treat the patient and stop blaming everyone and everything else but the abuser. ~ Steven Machat, #NFDB
1430:[Sigmund Freud] makes the interpretation of dreams extremely simple: it deals in substance with discovering what unconscious desires, distorted but recognizable, are hid-den in the dream. Instead, for me the dream is a mixture of thoughts and sensations that man has when he is asleep, a mental state relatively protected from the constant noise that society makes. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1431:The American Bar Association reports that suicides among lawyers are close to four times greater than the rate of the general population. An American Bar Association Journal article reported that experts on lawyer depression and substance abuse attributed the higher suicide rate to lawyers’ perfectionism and on their need to be aggressive and emotionally detached. ~ Bren Brown, #NFDB
1432:Or take the health category. Adding is on the left, removing to the right. Removing medication, or some other unnatural stressor—say, gluten, fructose, tranquilizers, nail polish, or some such substance—by trial and error is more robust than adding medication, with unknown side effects, unknown in spite of the statements about “evidence” and shmevidence. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
1433:As soon as the mouth is opened, evils spring forth. People either neglect the root and speak of the branches, or neglect the reality of the 'illusory' world and speak only of Enlightenment. Or else they chatter of cosmic activities leading to transformations, while neglecting the Substance from which they spring--indeed, there is NEVER any profit in discussion. ~ Huangbo Xiyun, #NFDB
1434:[T]he Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost [are] three ... not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. ~ Tertullian, #NFDB
1435:Atoms are a relationship of energy. You are a relationship of energy interacting with another person who is another complex relationship of energy. We all exchange more than words with each other. . . We are made of the same substance as rocks and stars. .. We are an exotic cocktail living on this planet. .. We live in this universe which is a self-transcending reality ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
1436:Hana yori dango. Dumplings over flowers. It basically means that someone should value needs over wants, substance over appearance. As in, make sure you have food and shelter before you burn money on something extravagant. And, you know, choose genuine friends who will be there for you over pretty, shallow ones. Don't get carried away by beauty if it leaves you empty. ~ Amanda Sun, #NFDB
1437:Karma and hell and suffering aren’t things in their own right but disturbances in this flimsy substance of false self. The problem isn’t in the disturbing things but in the thing disturbed. The thing disturbed is the false thing and if it weren’t there, there’d be nothing to be disturbed. Nothing to get pierced or burned or dried out. Nothing to be wounded or slain. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
1438:...Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents. ~ Don Kates, #NFDB
1439:Excess fat is not just inert cellular tissue. It is a repository of twisted, distorted thoughts and feelings that didn’t have anywhere else to go. If you remove the fat tissue but do not remove its psychic cause, then the fat might go but the causal imprint remains. And the imprint, in time, will attract more substance with which to materially express itself. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1440:Ordinary matter is what we are all made of. It has gravity and interacts with light. Dark matter is a mysterious substance that has gravity but does not interact with light in any known way. Dark energy is a mysterious pressure in the vacuum of space that acts in the opposite direction of gravity, forcing the universe to expand faster than it otherwise would. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
1441:The condition of the United States positively announces the lack of substance, of unifying principle from the start: that consensus is a lie, and that the absence of consensus is a necessary condition for, not the dissolution of the political entity, and its reconstruction according to both viral and virtual principles, which, are, in practice, user-generated. ~ Davis Schneiderman, #NFDB
1442:Marcus Aurelius is persuaded that God gives every man a special daemon as his guide—a belief which reappears in the Christian guardian angel. He finds comfort in the thought of the universe as a closely-knit whole; it is, he says, one living being, having one substance and one soul. One of his maxims is: 'Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1443:Students of media are persistently attacked as evaders, idly concentrating on means or processes rather than on 'substance'. The dramatic and rapid changes of 'substance' elude these accusers. Survival is not possible if one approaches his environment, the social drama, with a fixed, unchangeable point of view - the witless repetitive response to the unperceived. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
1444:The world is a lively place enough, in which we must accommodate ourselves to circumstances, sail with the stream as glibly as we can, be content to take froth for substance, the surface for the depth, the counterfeit for the real coin. I wonder no philosopher has ever established that our globe itself is hollow. It should be, if Nature is consistent in her works. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
1445:The whole of God is present at every point in space at the same time. Take time to meditate on this great idea. In other words, God doesn't come and go. God doesn't capriciously move substance from God's supply "up there" to fill your needs "down here." Nor does God answer prayer in some kind of coming forth. God is always present, totally present - as a Presence. ~ Eric Butterworth, #NFDB
1446:We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness. When we return to our true nature, our thoughts and perceptions no longer appear as modifications of a single substance, they come into being and subside like waves of the ocean. ~ Jean Klein, #NFDB
1447:And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived. ~ Brandon Sanderson, #NFDB
1448:Eventually, they were allowed to sit down in the cold mud and each given a small portion of some watery substance. It quickly became apparent that the bowls they shared had been used as chamber pots. The salty liquid slopped into these vessels was evil-smelling and inedible but the women pinched their noses and forced it down in a futile attempt to quench their thirst. ~ Wendy Holden, #NFDB
1449:Marijuana is effective at relieving nausea and vomiting, spasticity, appetite loss, certain types of pain, and other debilitating symptoms. And it is extraordinarily safe - safer than most medicines prescribed every day. If marijuana were a new discovery rather than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would be hailed as a wonder drug. ~ Lester Grinspoon, #NFDB
1450:Our breath is the most precious substance in our lives, and yet we totally take for granted when we exhale that our next breath will be there. If we did not take another breath, we would not last 3 minutes. Now if the Power that created us has given us enough breath to last for as long as we shall live, can we not trust that everything else we need will also be supplied? ~ Louise Hay, #NFDB
1451:And as in any feudal system, the people on whom the entire system depended were robbed, as completely as possible, of their power. The students were, for the most part, unable to hold inept teachers accountable, to protest the wasting of their own time, to influence the grounds on which they would be evaluated, to demand anything, really, of substance from the institution. ~ Eula Biss, #NFDB
1452:By using the term 'thinking substance' in such sharp contrast to 'extended substance' [Descartes] was clearly implying that the various distinct forms appearing in thought do not have their existence in such an order of extension and separation (i.e., some kind of space), but rather in a different order, in which extension and separations have no fundamental significance. ~ David Bohm, #NFDB
1453:Did you know that Jacques Benveniste, one of the world's leading homeopathic 'scientists', now claims that you can email homeopathic remedies? Yeah, see, what you do is you can take the 'memory' of the diluted substance out of the water electromagnetically, put it on your computer, email it, and play it back on a sound card into new water. I mean, that could work, right? ~ Nick Hornby, #NFDB
1454:Then I wonder if perhaps my mother, who had always reflected so perfectly the will of my father, had that night merely been reflecting mine. No, I tell myself. They were her words. But hers or not, those words, which had so comforted and healed me, were hollow. I don't believe they were faithless, but sincerity failed to give them substance, and they were swept away... ~ Tara Westover, #NFDB
1455:According to Scientific American, people watching TV “reported feeling relaxed and passive. The EEG studies similarly show less mental stimulation, as measured by alpha brain-wave production, during viewing than during reading. . . . Habit-forming drugs work in similar ways.” In short, scientists conclude that “TV does seem to meet the criteria for substance dependence.”1 ~ Ben Shapiro, #NFDB
1456:Certain memories, certain thoughts,are holes...holes ripped in you, through which precious things escape and leave you wanting, needing, gaping open. Laughter and belonging and comfort gush out, leaving their tracks but not their substance.
And you are left empty, a skeleton,a shell with wind rushing through you and a sensation of sinking, barely existing... ~ Danielle Younge Ullman,#NFDB
1457:We Americans think we enjoy self-government. We have all the trappings of self-government, like elections. But in reality, we have gradually lost many of our rights to govern ourselves. We have the form of self-government, but only some of the substance. We are, in a sense, a nation run by a handful of judges who often enforce, not the law, but their personal opinions. ~ Charles Colson, #NFDB
1458:We see that substance addictions are only one specific form of blind attachment to harmful ways of being, yet we condemn the addict's stubborn refusal to give up something deleterious to his life or to the life of others. Why do we despise, ostracize and punish the drug addict, when as a social collective, we share the same blindness and engage in the same rationalizations? ~ Gabor Mat, #NFDB
1459:The political trend is always to be observed, partly as a spectacle, partly for one’s own safety. The liberal is dissatisfied with regime; the anarch passes through their sequence – as inoffensively as possible – like a suite of rooms. This is the recipe for anyone who cares more about the substance of the world than its shadow – the philosopher, the artist, the believer. ~ Ernst J nger, #NFDB
1460:The political trend is always to be observed, partly as a spectacle, partly for one's own safety. The liberal is dissatisfied with regime; the anarch passes through their sequence - as inoffensively as possible - like a suite of rooms. This is the recipe for anyone who cares more about the substance of the world than its shadow - the philosopher, the artist, the believer. ~ Ernst Junger, #NFDB
1461:Substance abusers lie about everything, and usually do an awesome job of it." Stephen King once wrote. "It's the liar's disease." Nic once told me, quoting an AA platitude, "An alcoholic will steal your wallet and lie about it. A drug addict will steal your wallet and then help you look for it." Part of me is convinced that he actually believes that he will find it for you. ~ David Sheff, #NFDB
1462:The material movements are an exterior notation by which the soul represents its perceptions of certain truths of the Infinite and makes them effective in the terms of Substance. These things are a language, a notation, a hieroglyphic, a system of symbols, not themselves the deepest truest sense of the things they intimate. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Object of Knowledge, #NFDB
1463:Thoreau’s obsession with calculation helps us move past the vague subjective sense that there are trade-offs inherent in digital clutter, and forces us instead to confront it more precisely. He asks us to treat the minutes of our life as a concrete and valuable substance—arguably the most valuable substance we possess—and to always reckon with how much of this life we trade ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
1464:When we build ... let it not be for present delights nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think ... that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor, and the wrought substance of them, See! This our fathers did for us! ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
1465:and I attempted, above all, to get at the truth, not the masquerade that declares itself as genuineness when, habitually, the truth is invoked, but a wholesale leveling of the artifices of personality, a selfless plunge into...into what I had thought must remain forever hidden, to the substance of what I had always kept in shadow ... to that point where self becomes sorrow ... ~ Evan Dara, #NFDB
1466:How do ugly men make their way through life? He thinks of Michelotto. When he walks down the street men take half a step back from him. But he, Cesare, wields a different power. His face has always been his first weapon. Look at me, it says. I am what you see: easy on the eye, strong to the taste, a man with substance, someone to admire, for how can beauty this natural lie? ~ Sarah Dunant, #NFDB
1467:The political triumph of Donald Trump is a symbol and symptom—not cause or origin—of our imperial meltdown. Trump is neither alien nor extraneous to American culture and history. In fact, he is as American as apple pie. Yet he is a sign of our spiritual bankruptcy—all spectacle and no substance, all narcissism and no empathy, all appetite and greed and no wisdom and maturity. ~ Cornel West, #NFDB
1468:We are … the un-proud non-possessors of objects whose chief substance is that of the transient symbol. Our Puritan fear of the love of things turns out to have been groundless after all, for we do not love things or even possess them: they pass through our lives as barium passes through the digestive tract, unassimilated, their function merely to flash signals along the way. ~ Ralph Caplan, #NFDB
1469:We will eventually come to realize that acting out our hatred only causes more hatred. Picking up the burning ember of ill will to throw at our enemy burns us before it burns them. Likewise, when we pick up the substance or behavior that allows us to temporarily avoid the pain, we play with fire. It may feel warm and fuzzy at first, but it will inevitably burn us to the core. ~ Noah Levine, #NFDB
1470:Many of the first converts to the Christian faith were men of Greek learning. Therefore, in the interpretation of Christian metaphysics, it will be useful to consider the substance of Platonic teaching concerning the nature of the LOGOS. It will then be obvious that the Christian teaching is but a thinly veiled re-statement of the Greek original. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
1471:So there's no typical day, but I transition through the course of my business day by doing everything from construction meetings on the development project under construction to design meetings for an upcoming apparel delivery to acquisition meetings about projects we're looking to acquire. It's very diverse in terms of content, substance, and what I address on a typical day. ~ Ivanka Trump, #NFDB
1472:For while Copernicus has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the last thing that "stood fast" of the earth—the belief in "substance," in "matter," in the earth-residuum, and particle-atom: it is the greatest triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1473:Words are substance strange. Speak one and the air ripples into another's ears. Write one and the eye laps it up. But the sense transmutes, and the spoken word winds through the ear's labyrinth into a sense that is no longer the nerve's realm. The written word unfolds behind the eye into the world, world's image, and the imagination sees as the eye cannot see-thoughtfully. ~ Dan Beachy Quick, #NFDB
1474:I want to try not to repeat myself. But then I seem to do it continuously in my films. It's not something I make any effort to do. I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience. I feel I get criticized for style over substance, and for details that get in the way of the characters. But every decision I make is how to bring those characters forward. ~ Wes Anderson, #NFDB
1475:Mary adored Jesus as the Bridegroom of souls. Union is the final purpose of love. Jesus by the gift of His substance in the Eucharist unites Himself with our souls as with His dear spouses. As a Bridegroom, He gives them all His possessions, His name, His heart, His whole Self, but on the condition that the soul reciprocates. The soul, His spouse, shall live for Him only ~ Peter Julian Eymard, #NFDB
1476:Now, as I move through my fifties, I can be professional and domestic, creative and intellectual, patient and urgent. I have learned that we should never settle for someone else's definition of who we can be. Growing to this age, I realize, is kind of like feeling your voice deepen. It's still your voice, but it has more substance, and it sounds like it knows its own origins. ~ Susan Sarandon, #NFDB
1477:The latest research on substance use disorder from Harvard Medical School shows it takes the typical opioid-addicted user eight years—and four to five treatment attempts—to achieve remission for just a single year. And yet only about 10 percent of the addicted population manages to get access to care and treatment for a disease that has roughly the same incidence rate as diabetes. ~ Beth Macy, #NFDB
1478:Even though He was looking at darkness, God conveyed an image of light. He took His words and framed the world. The Word is what created the world. (Heb. 11:3.) The image inside you is produced by words and also released in words. God's Word causes faith to come, then faith-filled words perfect the image. Words release the image and give substance to it. It is a complete cycle. ~ Charles Capps, #NFDB
1479:L'être voué à l'eau est un être en vertige. Il meurt à chaque minute, sans cesse quelque chose de sa substance s'écoule. La mort quotidienne n'est pas la mort exubérante du feu qui perce le ciel de ses flèches; la mort quotidienne est la mort de l'eau. L'eau coule toujours, l'eau tombe toujours, elle finit toujours en sa mort horizontale. [...] La peine de l'eau est infinie. ~ Gaston Bachelard, #NFDB
1480:We are all spiritually powerless, however, and not just those physically addicted to a substance, which is why I address this book to everyone. Alcoholics just have their powerlessness visible for all to see. The rest of us disguise it in different ways, and overcompensate for our more hidden and subtle addictions and attachments, especially our addiction to our way of thinking. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
1481:I thought back to med school, when a patient had told me that she always wore her most expensive socks to the doctor's office, so that when she was in a patient's gown and shoeless, the doctor would see the socks and know she was a person of substance, to be treated with respect. (Ah, there's the problem - I was wearing hospital-issue socks, which I had been stealing for years! ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
1482:The best definition I can find of faith is the dependence upon the veracity of another. The Bible definition in the 11th chapter of Hebrews is, 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' In other words, faith says amen to everything that God says. Faith takes God without any ifs, If God says it, Faith says I believe it; Faith says amen to it. ~ Dwight L Moody, #NFDB
1483:The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called "acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes. ~ Thomas A Edison, #NFDB
1484:When a warrior fights not for himself, but for his brothers, when his most passionately sought goal is neither glory nor his own life’s preservation, but to spend his substance for them, his comrades, not to abandon them, not to prove unworthy of them, then his heart truly has achieved contempt for death, and with that he transcends himself and his actions touch the sublime. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
1485:Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! ~ Lewis Carroll, #NFDB
1486:For forty long years, God's people daily eat manna - a substance whose name literally mans 'What is it?' Hungry, they choose to gather up that which is baffling. They fill on that which has no meaning, More than 14,600 days that take their daily nourishment from that which they don't comprehend. They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery. They eat the mystery. ~ Ann Voskamp, #NFDB
1487:Have you ever tried to quit a bad habit, one that has come to define you? To cease using a substance--any substance--that you not only need but enjoy? To stop yourself from lighting up that cigarette? It's going to kill you, but hey, you're going to die someday anyway, why not die happy, why not die buzzed, why not die satisfied? Why not die sooner, with fewer regrets, than later? ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
1488:Science fiction invites the writer to grandly explore alternative worlds and pose questions about meaning and destiny. Inventing plausible new realities is what the genre is all about. One starts from a hypothesis and then builds out the logic, adding detail and incident to give substance to imaginary structures. In that respect, science fiction and theology have much in common. ~ Lawrence Wright, #NFDB
1489:For an instant she felt them, their identities, almost their substance, pass over her head like a wave. At some time she would be — or no, already she was like that too; she was one of them, her body the same, identical, merged with that other flesh that choked the air in the flowered room with its sweet organic scent; she felt suffocated by this thick sargasso-sea of femininity. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
1490:Rhetorical bombast, music and song resound, banners wave, flowers and colors serve as symbols, and the leaders seek to attach their followers to their own person. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. It has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These must lead it to victory. ~ Ludwig von Mises, #NFDB
1491:That is the point of the night sea journey—to be born into yourself. There, you are in the amniotic fluid, in an alchemical substance once again. You are journeying toward your own life. You are preparing for your fate. The promise is exhilarating, but the dangers are extreme. You have to avoid being just one of the crowd and instead take the chance of being born an individual. Jonah ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
1492:We have an out-of-control id taunting a tightly controlled superego. We have the king of winging it versus the queen of homework. She says he’s too unpredictable to be president, he says she’s too predictable. Trump can excite his crowds but falters on substance; Hillary has substance but falters on exciting her crowds. “The boor versus the bore,” Time’s Charlotte Alter call it. He’s ~ Maureen Dowd, #NFDB
1493:Briefly, in the act of composition, as an instrument there intervenes and is most potent, fire, flaming, fervid, hot; but in the very substance of the compound there intervenes, as an ingredient, as it is commonly called, as a material principle and as a constituent of the whole compound the material and principle of fire, not fire itself. This I was the first to call phlogiston. ~ Georg Ernst Stahl, #NFDB
1494:Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
1495:He fumbles at your spirit
As players at the keys
Before they drop full music on;
He stuns you by degrees.
Prepares your brittle substance
For the ethereal blow
by fainter hammers, further heard,
Then nearer, then so slow
Your breath has time to straighten
Your brain to bubble cool,-
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul. ~ Emily Dickinson,#NFDB
1496:Suddenly Einstein jumped up. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Are you boiling the liver in water?” Mrs. Frank allowed that was indeed what she was doing. “The boiling-point of water is too low,” Einstein declared. “You must use a substance with a higher boiling-point such as butter or fat.” From then on, Mrs. Frank referred to the necessity of frying liver as “Einstein’s theory. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1497:The most basic act of awareness or knowing that we can demonstrate in science. I postulate that that is the very basis of why we're conscious at all, that it is this relationship at the quantum level as matter evolves into more complex form, including plants and animals and living substance and ourselves, that this area of consciousness as an awareness becomes more and more complex. ~ Edgar Mitchell, #NFDB
1498:want to get to the substance of the book ["Thank You for Being Late"], but it is so closely connected to this presidential election. And you also wrote a series of columns during the campaign, very tough on Donald Trump. You called him a disgusting human being and now you're calling the election a moral 9/11 only 9/11 was done to us from the outside. We did this to ourselves. ~ George Stephanopoulos, #NFDB
1499:Whether right or wrong, it is my belief that Christian colleges place their emphasis not on that which divides us, but on the substance that binds us together. That commonality is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He commanded us to love one another—to set aside our differences and to care for “the least of these” among us. It is our unity, not our diversity, that deserves our allegiance. ~ James C Dobson, #NFDB
1500:Blood transforms the warm bath water and, in it, I see weakly that this was a mistake. The razor's cut is not deep, nevertheless the blood rushes out happily in the warm water as if kin to it, the same tender substance. Rising a new person transformed with an icy sense of error I go to the sink and turn on cold water which is not friendly to blood. The cut is deeper than imagined. ~ Joyce Carol Oates, #NFDB
519 Integral Yoga
91 Occultism
89 Christianity
77 Poetry
58 Philosophy
57 Psychology
53 Yoga
32 Fiction
16 Hinduism
14 Science
10 Integral Theory
7 Theosophy
7 Kabbalah
6 Baha i Faith
4 Philsophy
4 Mythology
4 Mysticism
3 Cybernetics
2 Sufism
2 Education
1 Thelema
1 Buddhism
1 Alchemy
362 Sri Aurobindo
210 The Mother
149 Nolini Kanta Gupta
144 Satprem
58 Carl Jung
31 Sri Ramakrishna
31 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
30 Plotinus
27 H P Lovecraft
23 Aleister Crowley
20 Saint Augustine of Hippo
15 James George Frazer
12 Swami Krishnananda
11 William Wordsworth
11 Vyasa
10 Walt Whitman
10 Swami Vivekananda
8 Plato
8 A B Purani
7 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
7 Paul Richard
7 Franz Bardon
7 Aldous Huxley
6 Lucretius
6 Baha u llah
6 Anonymous
5 Rudolf Steiner
5 Percy Bysshe Shelley
5 Jorge Luis Borges
5 Alice Bailey
4 William Butler Yeats
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Saint John of Climacus
4 Robert Browning
4 Ralph Waldo Emerson
4 Nirodbaran
4 Jordan Peterson
4 George Van Vrekhem
4 Friedrich Nietzsche
3 Patanjali
3 Ovid
3 Norbert Wiener
3 John Keats
2 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Jalaluddin Rumi
2 Al-Ghazali
69 The Synthesis Of Yoga
64 Record of Yoga
45 The Life Divine
35 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
34 Mysterium Coniunctionis
30 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
28 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
28 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
27 Lovecraft - Poems
23 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
20 Savitri
20 Agenda Vol 03
19 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
16 Letters On Yoga II
15 The Golden Bough
14 Prayers And Meditations
14 Agenda Vol 06
13 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
13 Liber ABA
13 Letters On Yoga IV
13 Essays On The Gita
13 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
13 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
13 City of God
12 The Study and Practice of Yoga
12 The Practice of Psycho therapy
12 Essays Divine And Human
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
12 Agenda Vol 02
11 Wordsworth - Poems
11 Vishnu Purana
11 The Future of Man
10 Vedic and Philological Studies
10 Questions And Answers 1956
10 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
10 Agenda Vol 11
10 Agenda Vol 10
10 Agenda Vol 01
9 Whitman - Poems
9 The Phenomenon of Man
9 Letters On Yoga I
9 Agenda Vol 04
8 The Secret Of The Veda
8 The Confessions of Saint Augustine
8 The Bible
8 Questions And Answers 1953
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
8 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
8 On the Way to Supermanhood
8 Magick Without Tears
8 Hymn of the Universe
8 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
8 Collected Poems
8 Agenda Vol 08
8 Agenda Vol 07
7 The Perennial Philosophy
7 Questions And Answers 1954
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
7 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
7 Letters On Yoga III
7 Isha Upanishad
7 General Principles of Kabbalah
7 Agenda Vol 09
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Human Cycle
6 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
6 Talks
6 Of The Nature Of Things
6 Letters On Poetry And Art
6 Aion
6 Agenda Vol 05
5 Words Of Long Ago
5 Shelley - Poems
5 Raja-Yoga
5 Questions And Answers 1955
5 Initiation Into Hermetics
5 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
5 Agenda Vol 13
4 Yeats - Poems
4 Twilight of the Idols
4 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
4 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
4 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
4 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
4 Preparing for the Miraculous
4 Maps of Meaning
4 Kena and Other Upanishads
4 Emerson - Poems
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
4 Browning - Poems
4 Agenda Vol 12
3 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
3 The Book of Certitude
3 Some Answers From The Mother
3 Patanjali Yoga Sutras
3 Metamorphoses
3 Let Me Explain
3 Labyrinths
3 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
3 Keats - Poems
3 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
3 Dark Night of the Soul
3 Cybernetics
2 The Practice of Magical Evocation
2 Theosophy
2 The Alchemy of Happiness
2 On Education
2 Faust
2 Bhakti-Yoga
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
2 5.1.01 - Ilion
00.01 - The Approach to Mysticism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
For it must be understood that the heart, the mystic heart, is not the external thing which is the seat of emotion or passion; it is the secret heart that is behind, the inner heartantarhdaya of the Upanishadwhich is the centre of the individual consciousness, where all the divergent lines of that consciousness meet and from where they take their rise. That is what the Upanishad means when it says that the heart has a hundred channels which feed the human vehicle. That is the source, the fount and origin, the very Substance of the true personality. Mystic knowledge the true mystic knowledge which saves and fulfilsbegins with the awakening or the entrance into this real being. This being is pure and luminous and blissful and sovereignly real, because it is a portion, a spark of the Divine Consciousness and Nature: a contact and communion with it brings automatically into play the light and the truth that are its Substance. At the same time it is an uprising flame that reaches out naturally to higher domains of consciousness and manifests them through its translucid dynamism.
The knowledge that is obtained without the heart's instrumentation or co-operation is liable to be what the Gita describes as Asuric. First of all, from the point of view of knowledge itself, it would be, as I have already said, egocentric, a product and agent of one's limited and isolated self, easily put at the service of desire and passion. This knowledge, whether rationalistic or occult, is, as it were, hard and dry in its constitution, and oftener than not, negative and destructivewi thering and blasting in its career like the desert simoom.
00.01 - The Mother on Savitri, #Sweet Mother - Harmonies of Light, #unset, #Zen
In truth, the entire form of Savitri has descended "en masse" from the highest region and Sri Aurobindo with His genius only arranged the lines - in a superb and magnificent style. Sometimes entire lines were revealed and He has left them intact; He worked hard, untiringly, so that the inspiration could come from the highest possible summit. And what a work He has created! Yes, it is a true creation in itself. It is an unequalled work. Everything is there, and it is put in such a simple, such a clear form; verses perfectly harmonious, limpid and eternally true. My child, I have read so many things, but I have never come across anything which could be compared with Savitri. I have studied the best works in Greek, Latin, English and of course French literature, also in German and all the great creations of the West and the East, including the great epics; but I repeat it, I have not found anywhere anything comparable with Savitri. All these literary works seems to me empty, flat, hollow, without any deep reality - apart from a few rare exceptions, and these too represent only a small fraction of what Savitri is. What grandeur, what amplitude, what reality: it is something immortal and eternal He has created. I tell you once again there is nothing like in it the whole world. Even if one puts aside the vision of the reality, that is, the essential Substance which is the heart of the inspiration, and considers only the lines in themselves, one will find them unique, of the highest classical kind. What He has created is something man cannot imagine. For, everything is there, everything.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
00.02 - Mystic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We can make a distinction here between two types of expression which we have put together indiscriminately, figures and symbols. Figures, we may say, are those that are constructed by the rational mind, the intellect; they are mere metaphors and similes and are not organically related to the thing experienced, but put round it as a robe that can be dropped or changed without affecting the experience itself. Thus, for example, when the Upanishad says, tmnam rathinam viddhi (Know that the soul is the master of the chariot who sits within it) or indriyi haynhu (The senses, they say, are the horses), we have here only a comparison or analogy that is common and natural to the poetic manner. The particular figure or simile used is not inevitable to the idea or experience that it seeks to express, its part and parcel. On the other hand, take this Upanishadic perception: hirayamayena patrea satyasyphitam mukham (The face of the Truth lies hidden under the golden orb). Here the symbol is not mere analogy or comparison, a figure; it is one with the very Substance of the experience the two cannot be separated. Or when the Vedas speak of the kindling of the Fire, the rushing of the waters or the rise of the Dawn, the images though taken from the material world, are not used for the sake of mere comparison, but they are the embodiments, the living forms of truths experienced in another world.
When a Mystic refers to the Solar Light or to the Fire the light, for example, that struck down Saul and transformed him into Saint Paul or the burning bush that visited Moses, it is not the physical or material object that he means and yet it is that in a way. It is the materialization of something that is fundamentally not material: some movement in an inner consciousness precipitates itself into the region of the senses and takes from out of the material the form commensurable with its nature that it finds there.
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And they who are thus lifted up into the Higher Orbit are freed from the bondage to the cycle of rebirth. They enjoy the supreme Liberation that is of the Spirit; and even when they descend into the Inferior Path, it is to work out as free agents, as vehicles of the Divine, a special purpose, to bring down something of the Substance and nature of the Solar reality into the lower world, enlighten and elevate the lower, as far as it is allowed, into the higher.
IV. The Triple Agni
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The Science of the Five Agnis (Fires), as propounded by Pravahan, explains and illustrates the process of the birth of the body, the passage of the soul into earth existence. It describes the advent of the child, the building of the physical form of the human being. The process is conceived of as a sacrifice, the usual symbol with the Vedic Rishis for the expression of their vision and perception of universal processes of Nature, physical and psychological. Here, the child IS said to be the final fruit of the sacrifice, the different stages in the process being: (i) Soma, (ii) Rain, (iii) Food, (iv) Semen, (v) Child. Soma means Rasaphysically the principle of water, psychologically the 'principle of delightand symbolises and constitutes the very soul and Substance of life. Now it is said that these five principles the fundamental and constituent elementsare born out of the sacrifice, through the oblation or offering to the five Agnis. The first Agni is Heaven or the Sky-God, and by offering to it one's faith and one's ardent desire, one calls into manifestation Soma or Rasa or Water, the basic principle of life. This water is next offered to the second Agni, the Rain-God, who sends down Rain. Rain, again, is offered to the third Agni, the Earth, who brings forth Food. Food is, in its turn, offered to the fourth Agni, the Father or Male, who elaborates in himself the generating fluid.
Finally, this fluid is offered to the fifth Agni, the Mother or the Female, who delivers the Child.
00.04 - The Beautiful in the Upanishads, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The form of a thing can be beautiful; but the formless too has its beauty. Indeed, the beauty of the formless, that is to say, the very sum and Substance, the ultimate essence, the soul of beauty that is what suffuses, with in-gathered colour and enthusiasm, the realisation and poetic creation of the Upanishadic seer. All the forms that are scattered abroad in their myriad manifest beauty hold within themselves a secret Beauty and are reflected or projected out of it. This veiled Name of Beauty can be compared to nothing on the phenomenal hemisphere of Nature; it has no adequate image or representation below:
na tasya pratimsti
00.05 - A Vedic Conception of the Poet, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
'Kavi' is an invariable epithet of the gods. The Vedas mean by this attribute to bring out a most fundamental character, an inalienable dharma of the heavenly host. All the gods are poets; and a human being can become a poet only in so far as he attains to the nature and status of a god. Who is then a kavi? The Poet is he who by his poetic power raises forms of beauty in heavenkavi kavitv divi rpam sajat.1Thus the essence of poetic power is to fashion divine Beauty, to reveal heavenly forms. What is this Heaven whose forms the Poet discovers and embodies? HeavenDyaushas a very definite connotation in the Veda. It means the luminous or divine Mind 2the mind purified of its obscurity and limitations, due to subjection to the external senses, thus opening to the higher Light, receiving and recording faithfully the deeper and vaster movements and vibrations of the Truth, giving them a form, a perfect body of the right thought and the right word. Indra is the lord of this world and he can be approached only with an enkindled intelligence, ddhay man,3a faultless understanding, sumedh. He is the supreme Artisan of the poetic power,Tash, the maker of perfect forms, surpa ktnum.4 All the gods turn towards Indra and become gods and poets, attain their Great Names of Supreme Beauty.5 Indra is also the master of the senses, indriyas, who are his hosts. It is through this mind and the senses that the poetic creation has to be manifested. The mind spreads out wide the Poet's weaving;6 the poet is the priest who calls down and works out the right thinking in the sacrificial labour of creation.7 But that creation is made in and through the inner mind and the inner senses that are alive to the subtle formation of a vaster knowledge.8 The poet envisages the golden forms fashioned out of the very profundity of the consciousness.9 For the Substance, the material on which the Poet works, is Truth. The seat of the Truth the poets guard, they uphold the supreme secret Names.10 The poet has the expressive utterance, the creative word; the poet is a poet by his poetic creation-the shape faultlessly wrought out that unveils and holds the Truth.11The form of beauty is the body of the Truth.
The poet is a trinity in himself. A triune consciousness forms his personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara. He has the direct vision, the luminous intelligence, the immediate perception.12 A subtle and profound and penetrating consciousness is his,nigam, pracetas; his is the eye of the Sun,srya caku.13 He secures an increased being through his effulgent understanding.14 In the second place, the Poet is not only Seer but Doer; he is knower as well as creator. He has a dynamic knowledge and his vision itself is power, ncak;15 he is the Seer-Will,kavikratu.16 He has the blazing radiance of the Sun and is supremely potent in his self-Iuminousness.17 The Sun is the light and the energy of the Truth. Even like the Sun the Poet gives birth to the Truth, srya satyasava, satyya satyaprasavya. But the Poet as Power is not only the revealer or creator,savit, he is also the builder or fashioner,ta, and he is the organiser,vedh is personality. First of all, he is the Knower-the Seer of the Truth, kavaya satyadrara, of the Truth.18 As Savita he manifests the Truth, as Tashta he gives a perfected body and form to the Truth, and as Vedha he maintains the Truth in its dynamic working. The effective marshalling and organisation of the Truth is what is called Ritam, the Right; it is also called Dharma,19 the Law or the Rhythm, the ordered movement and invincible execution of the Truth. The Poet pursues the Path of the Right;20 it is he who lays out the Path for the march of the Truth, the progress of the Sacrifice.21 He is like a fast steed well-yoked, pressing forward;22 he is the charger that moves straight and unswerving and carries us beyond 23into the world of felicity.
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Without being formally initiated into their doctrines, Sri Ramakrishna thus realized the ideals of religions other than Hinduism. He did not need to follow any doctrine. All barriers were removed by his overwhelming love of God. So he became a Master who could speak with authority regarding the ideas and ideals of the various religions of the world. "I have practised", said he, "all religions — Hinduism, Islam, Christianity — and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever I look, I see men quarrelling in the name of religion — Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaishnavas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well — the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it 'jal'; at another the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it pani'. At a third the Christians call it 'water'. Can we imagine that it is not 'jal', but only 'pani' or 'water'? How ridiculous! The Substance is One under different names, and everyone is seeking the same Substance; only climate, temperament, and name create differences. Let each man follow his own path. If he sincerely and ardently wishes to know God, peace be unto him! He will surely realize Him."
In 1867 Sri Ramakrishna returned to Kamarpukur to recuperate from the effect of his austerities. The peaceful countryside, the simple and artless companions of his boyhood, and the pure air did him much good. The villagers were happy to get back their playful, frank, witty, kind-hearted, and truthful Gadadhar, though they did not fail to notice the great change that had come over him during his years in Calcutta. His wife, Sarada Devi, now fourteen years old, soon arrived at Kamarpukur. Her spiritual development was much beyond her age and she was able to understand immediately her husband's state of mind. She became eager to learn from him about God and to live with him as his attendant. The Master accepted her cheerfully both as his disciple and as his spiritual companion. Referring to the experiences of these few days, she once said: "I used to feel always as if a pitcher full of bliss were placed in my heart. The joy was indescribable."
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
that Substance is composed of many spheres.
The account given of Creation is the same as that
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
It did not take much time for M. to become very intimate with the Master, or for the Master to recognise in this disciple a divinely commissioned partner in the fulfilment of his spiritual mission. When M. was reading out the Chaitanya Bhagavata, the Master discovered that he had been, in a previous birth, a disciple and companion of the great Vaishnava Teacher, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and the Master even saw him 'with his naked eye' participating in the ecstatic mass-singing of the Lord's name under the leadership of that Divine personality. So the Master told M, "You are my own, of the same Substance as the father and the son," indicating thereby that M. was one of the chosen few and a part and parcel of his Divine mission.
There was an urge in M. to abandon the household life and become a Sannysin. When he communicated this idea to the Master, he forbade him saying," Mother has told me that you have to do a little of Her work you will have to teach Bhagavata, the word of God to humanity. The Mother keeps a Bhagavata Pandit with a bondage in the world!"
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
we are the terrestrial summit may be considered, in a sense, as an inverse manifestation, by which these supreme Powers in their unity and their diversity use, develop and perfect the imperfect Substance and activities of Matter, of Life and of Mind so that they, the inferior modes, may express in mutable relativity an increasing harmony of the divine and eternal states from which they are born. If this be the truth of the universe, then the goal of evolution is also its cause, it is that which is immanent in its elements and out of them is liberated. But the liberation is surely imperfect if it is only an escape and there is no return upon the containing Substance and activities to exalt and transform them.
The immanence itself would have no credible reason for being if it did not end in such a transfiguration. But if human mind can become capable of the glories of the divine Light, human emotion and sensibility can be transformed into the mould and assume the measure and movement of the supreme Bliss, human action not only represent but feel itself to be the motion of a divine and non-egoistic Force and the physical Substance of our being sufficiently partake of the purity of the supernal essence, sufficiently unify plasticity and durable constancy to support and prolong these highest experiences and agencies, then all the long labour of Nature will end in a crowning justification and her evolutions reveal their profound significance.
So dazzling is even a glimpse of this supreme existence and so absorbing its attraction that, once seen, we feel readily justified in neglecting all else for its pursuit. Even, by an opposite exaggeration to that which sees all things in Mind and the mental life as an exclusive ideal, Mind comes to be regarded as an unworthy deformation and a supreme obstacle, the source of an illusory universe, a negation of the Truth and itself to be denied and all its works and results annulled if we desire the final liberation. But this is a half-truth which errs by regarding only the actual limitations of Mind and ignores its divine intention.
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Hathayoga and Rajayoga are thus successively practised. And in a recent unique example, in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, we see a colossal spiritual capacity first driving straight to the divine realisation, taking, as it were, the kingdom of heaven by violence, and then seizing upon one Yogic method after another and extracting the Substance out of it with an incredible rapidity, always to return to the heart of the whole matter, the realisation and possession of God by the power of love, by the extension of inborn spirituality into various experience and by the spontaneous play of an intuitive knowledge. Such an example cannot be generalised. Its object also was special and temporal, to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience. To know, be and possess
42
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Yoga. In man we render these terms by Will and Faith, - a will that is eventually self-effective because it is of the Substance of
Knowledge and a faith that is the reflex in the lower consciousness of a Truth or real Idea yet unrealised in the manifestation.
0.06 - INTRODUCTION, #Dark Night of the Soul, #Saint John of the Cross, #Christianity
treatise. They lose both in flexibility and in Substance through the closeness with
which they follow the stanzas of which they are the exposition. In the Ascent and
0.08 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We too carry it in ourselves, in the Substance of our body,
since the Substance of our body is the same as that of the earth.
But by evolution, this sleeping and hidden consciousness
0.09 - Letters to a Young Teacher, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
the most opaque Substances and acts even in the unconsciousness.
But then its action is slow and takes a very long time to
01.01 - A Yoga of the Art of Life, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When Sri Aurobindo said, Our Yoga is not for ourselves but for humanity, many heaved a sigh of relief and thought that the great soul was after all not entirely lost to the world, his was not one more name added to the long list of Sannyasins that India has been producing age after age without much profit either to herself or to the human society (or even perhaps to their own selves). People understood his Yoga to be a modern one, dedicated to the service of humanity. If service to humanity was not the very sum and Substance of his spirituality, it was, at least, the fruitful end and consummation. His Yoga was a sort of art to explore and harness certain unseen powers that can better and ameliorate human life in a more successful way than mere rational scientific methods can hope to do.
Sri Aurobindo saw that the very core of his teaching was being missed by this common interpretation of his saying. So he changed his words and said, Our Yoga is not for humanity but for the Divine. But I am afraid this change of front, this volte-face, as it seemed, was not welcomed in many quarters; for thereby all hope of having him back for the work of the country or the world appeared to be totally lost and he came to be looked upon again as an irrevocable metaphysical dreamer, aloof from physical things and barren, even like the Immutable Brahman.
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As to the extent of realisation, we say again that that is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the Substance that counts. Even if it were a small nucleus it would be sufficient, at least for the beginning, provided it is the real, the genuine thing
Swalpamapyasya dharmasya tryate mahato bhayt1
01.02 - Sri Aurobindo - Ahana and Other Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The heart and its urges, the vital and its surges, the physical impulsesit is these of which the poets sang in their infinite variations. But the mind proper, that is to say, the higher reflective ideative mind, was not given the right of citizenship in the domain of poetry. I am not forgetting the so-called Metaphysicals. The element of metaphysics among the Metaphysicals has already been called into question. There is here, no doubt, some theology, a good dose of mental cleverness or conceit, but a modern intellectual or rather rational intelligence is something other, something more than that. Even the metaphysics that was commandeered here had more or less a decorative value, it could not be taken into the pith and Substance of poetic truth and beauty. It was a decoration, but not unoften a drag. I referred to the Upanishads, but these strike quite a different, almost an opposite line in this connection. They are in a sense truly metaphysical: they bypass the mind and the mental powers, get hold of a higher mode of consciousness, make a direct contact with truth and beauty and reality. It was Buddha's credit to have forged this missing link in man's spiritual consciousness, to have brought into play the power of the rational intellect and used it in support of the spiritual experience. That is not to say that he was the very first person, the originator who initiated the movement; but at least this seems to be true that in him and his au thentic followers the movement came to the forefront of human consciousness and attained the proportions of a major member of man's psychological constitution. We may remember here that Socrates, who started a similar movement of rationalisation in his own way in Europe, was almost a contemporary of the Buddha.
Poetry as an expression of thought-power, poetry weighted with intelligence and rationalised knowledge that seems to me to be the end and drive, the secret sense of all the mystery of modern technique. The combination is risky, but not impossible. In the spiritual domain the Gita achieved this miracle to a considerable degree. Still, the power of intelligence and reason shown by Vyasa is of a special order: it is a sublimated function of the faculty, something aloof and other-worldly"introvert", a modern mind would term it that is to say, something a priori, standing in its own au thenticity and self-sufficiency. A modern intelligence would be more scientific, let us use the word, more matter-of-fact and sense-based: the mental light should not be confined in its ivory tower, however high that may be, but brought down and placed at the service of our perception and appreciation and explanation of things human and terrestrial; made immanent in the mundane and the ephemeral, as they are commonly called. This is not an impossibility. Sri Aurobindo seems to have done the thing. In him we find the three terms of human consciousness arriving at an absolute fusion and his poetry is a wonderful example of that fusion. The three terms are the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical and the physical or sensational. The intellectual, or more generally, the mental, is the intermediary, the Paraclete, as he himself will call it later on in a poem9 magnificently exemplifying the point we are trying to make out the agent who negotiates, bridges and harmonises the two other firmaments usually supposed to be antagonistic and incompatible.
01.02 - The Creative Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now the centre of this energy, the matrix of creativity is the soul itself, one's own soul. If you want to createlive, grow and be real-find yourself, be yourself. The simple old wisdom still remains the eternal wisdom. It is because we fall off from our soul that we wander into side-paths, paths that do not belong to our real nature and hence that lead to imitation and repetition, decay and death. This is what happens to what we call common souls. The force of circumstances, the pressure of environment or simply the momentum of custom or habit compel them to choose the easiest and the readiest way that may lie before them. They do not consult the demand of the inner being but the requirement of the moment. Our bodily needs, our vital hungers and our mental prejudices obsess and obscure the impulsions that thrill the hidden spirit. We hasten to gratify the immediate and forget the eternal, we clutch at the shadow and let go the Substance. We are carried away in the flux and tumult of life. It is a mixed and collective whirla Weltgeist that moves and governs us. We are helpless straws drifting in the current. But manhood demands that we stop and pause, pull ourselves out of the Maelstrom and be what we are. We must shape things as we want and not allow things to shape us as they want.
Let each take cognisance of the godhead that is within him for self is Godand in the strength of the soul-divinity create his universe. It does not matter what sort of universe he- creates, so long as he creates it. The world created by a Buddha is not the same as that created by a Napoleon, nor should they be the same. It does not prove anything that I cannot become a Kalidasa; for that matter Kalidasa cannot become what I am. If you have not the genius of a Shankara it does not mean that you have no genius at all. Be and become yourselfma gridhah kasyachit dhanam, says the Upanishad. The fountain-head of creative genius lies there, in the free choice and the particular delight the self-determination of the spirit within you and not in the desire for your neighbours riches. The world has become dull and uniform and mechanical, since everybody endeavours to become not himself, but always somebody else. Imitation is servitude and servitude brings in grief.
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is there not a fundamental difference, difference not merely with regard to the poetic personality, but with regard to the very stuff of consciousness? There is direct vision here, the fullness of light, the native rhythm and Substance of revelation, as if
In the dead wall closing from a wider self,
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Man's consciousness is further to rise from the mental to over-mental regions. Accordingly, his life and activities and along with that his artistic creations too will take on a new tone and rhythm, a new mould and constitution even. For this transition, the higher mentalwhich is normally the field of philosophical and idealistic activitiesserves as the Paraclete, the Intercessor; it takes up the lower functionings of the consciousness, which are intense in their own way, but narrow and turbid, and gives, by purifying and enlarging, a wider frame, a more luminous pattern, a more subtly articulated , form for the higher, vaster and deeper realities, truths and harmonies to express and manifest. In the old-world spiritual and mystic poets, this intervening medium was overlooked for evident reasons, for human reason or even intelligence is a double-edged instrument, it can make as well as mar, it has a light that most often and naturally shuts off other higher lights beyond it. So it was bypassed, some kind of direct and immediate contact was sought to be established between the normal and the transcendental. The result was, as I have pointed out, a pure spiritual poetry, on the one hand, as in the Upanishads, or, on the other, religious poetry of various grades and denominations that spoke of the spiritual but in the terms and in the manner of the mundane, at least very much coloured and dominated by the latter. Vyasa was the great legendary figure in India who, as is shown in his Mahabharata, seems to have been one of the pioneers, if not the pioneer, to forge and build the missing link of Thought Power. The exemplar of the manner is the Gita. Valmiki's represented a more ancient and primary inspiration, of a vast vital sensibility, something of the kind that was at the basis of Homer's genius. In Greece it was Socrates who initiated the movement of speculative philosophy and the emphasis of intellectual power slowly began to find expression in the later poets, Sophocles and Euripides. But all these were very simple beginnings. The moderns go in for something more radical and totalitarian. The rationalising element instead of being an additional or subordinate or contri buting factor, must itself give its norm and form, its own Substance and manner to the creative activity. Such is the present-day demand.
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all that to the other world, thought of gods and goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He feels his Substance of undying self
And loses his kinship to mortality.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Matter forms the lowest level of reality. Above it is the elan vital. Above the elan vital there is yet the domain of the Spirit. And the Spirit is a static Substance and at the same a dynamic creative power. It is Being (Sat) that realises or expresses itself through certain typal nuclei or nodi of consciousness (chit) in a continuous becoming, in a flow of creative activity (ananda). The dynamism of the vital energy is only a refraction or precipitation of the dynamism of the spirit; and so also static matter is only the Substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypesswarupa and swabhavain the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.
This is the truth that is trying to dawn upon the new age. Not matter but that which forms the Substance of matter, not intellect but a vaster consciousness that informs the intellect, not man as he is, an aberration in the cosmic order, but as he may and shall be the embodiment and fulfilment of that orderthis is the secret Intuition which, as yet dimly envisaged, nevertheless secretly inspires all the human activities of today. Only, the truth is being interpreted, as we have said, in terms of vital life. The intellectual and physical man gave us one aspect of the reality, but neither is the vital and psychical man the complete reality. The one acquisition of this shifting of the viewpoint has been that we are now in touch with the natural and deeper movement of humanity and not as before merely with its artificial scaffolding. The Alexandrine civilisation of humanity, in Nietzsche's phrase, was a sort of divagation from nature, it was following a loop away from the direct path of natural evolution. And the new Renaissance of today has precisely corrected this aberration of humanity and brought it again in a line with the natural cosmic order.
Certainly this does not go far enough into the motive of the change. The cosmic order does not mean mentalised vitalism which is also in its turn a section of the integral reality. It means the order of the spirit, it means the transfiguration of the physical, the vital and the intellectual into the supernal Substance, Power and Light of that Spirit. The real transcendence of humanity is not the transcendence of one or other of its levels but the total transcendence to an altogether different status and the transmutation of humanity in the mould of that statusnot a Nietzschean Titan nor a Bergsonian Dionysus but the tranquil vision and delight and dynamism of the Spirit the incarnation of a god-head.
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01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I said that the supreme artist is superconscious: his consciousness withdraws from the normal mental consciousness and becomes awake and alive in another order of consciousness. To that superior consciousness the artist's mentalityhis ideas and dispositions, his judgments and valuations and acquisitions, in other words, his normal psychological make-upserves as a channel, an instrument, a medium for transcription. Now, there are two stages, or rather two lines of activity in the processus, for they may be overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle worldWords-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds or lines and colours depends altogether upon the purity of the channel through which it has to pass. The mental vehicle receives and records and it can do so to perfection if it is perfectly in tune with what it has to receive and record; otherwise the transcription becomes mixed and blurred, a faint or confused echo, a poor show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety in the recording mentality, suffuses it with its own glow and puissance, indeed resolves it into its own Substance, as it were. And the difference between the two, the secret norm and the recording form, determines the scale of the artist's creative value. It happens often that the obstruction of a too critically observant and self-conscious brain-mind successfully blocks up the flow of something supremely beautiful that wanted to come down and waited for an opportunity.
Artists themselves, almost invariably, speak of their inspiration: they look upon themselves more or less as mere instruments of something or some Power that is beyond them, beyond their normal consciousness attached to the brain-mind, that controls them and which they cannot control. This perception has been given shape in myths and legends. Goddess Saraswati or the Muses are, however, for them not a mere metaphor but concrete realities. To what extent a poet may feel himself to be a mere passive, almost inanimate, instrumentnothing more than a mirror or a sensitive photographic plateis illustrated in the famous case of Coleridge. His Kubla Khan, as is well known, he heard in sleep and it was a long poem very distinctly recited to him, but when he woke up and wanted to write it down he could remember only the opening lines, the rest having gone completely out of his memory; in other words, the poem was ready-composed somewhere else, but the transmitting or recording instrument was faulty and failed him. Indeed, it is a common experience to hear in sleep verses or musical tunes and what seem then to be very beautiful things, but which leave no trace on the brain and are not recalled in memory.
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Whether the original and true source of the poet's inspiration lies deep within or high above, all depends upon the mediating instrument the mind (in its most general sense) and speech for a successful transcription. Man's ever-growing consciousness demanded also a conscious development and remoulding of these two factors. A growth, a heightening and deepening of the consciousness meant inevitably a movement towards the spiritual element in things. And that means, we have said, a twofold change in the future poet's make-up. First as regards the Substance. The revolutionary shift that we notice in modern poets towards a completely new domain of subject-matter is a signpost that more is meant than what is expressed. The superficialities and futilities that are dealt with do not in their outward form give the real trend of things. In and through all these major and constant preoccupation of our poets is "the pain of the present and the passion for the future": they are, as already stated, more prophets than poets, but prophets for the moment crying in the wildernessalthough some have chosen the path of denial and revolt. They are all looking ahead or beyond or deep down, always yearning for another truth and reality which will explain, justify and transmute the present calvary of human living. Such an acute tension of consciousness has necessitated an overhauling of the vehicle of expression too, the creation of a mode of expressing the inexpressible. For that is indeed what human consciousness and craft are aiming at in the present stage of man's evolution. For everything, almost everything that can be normally expressed has been expressed and in a variety of ways as much as is possible: that is the history of man's aesthetic creativity. Now the eye probes into the unexpressed world; for the artist too the Upanishadic problem has cropped up:
By whom impelled does the mind fall to its target, what is the agent that is behind the eye and sees through the eyes, what is the hearing and what the speech that their respective sense organs do not and cannot convey and record adequately or at all?
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He is the Substance, he the self of things;
She has forged from him her works of skill and might:
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His Substance a material for her works.
His spirit survives amid the death of things,
01.05 - Rabindranath Tagore: A Great Poet, a Great Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The spirit of the age demands this new gospel. Mankind needs and awaits a fresh revelation. The world and life are not an illusion or a lesser reality: they are, if taken rightly, as real as the pure Spirit itself. Indeed, Spirit and Flesh, Consciousness and Matter are not antinomies; to consider them as such is itself an illusion. In fact, they are only two poles or modes or aspects of the same reality. To separate or divide them is a one-sided concentration or abstraction on the part of the human mind. The fulfilment of the Spirit is in its expression through Matter; human life too reaches its highest term, its summum bonum, in embodying the spiritual consciousness here on earth and not dissolving itself in the Transcendence. That is the new Dispensation which answers to the deepest aspiration in man and towards which he has been travelling through the ages in the course of the evolution of his consciousness. Many, however, are the prophets and sages who have set this ideal before humanity and more and more insistently and clearly as we come nearer to the age we live in. But none or very few have expressed it with such beauty and charm and compelling persuasion. It would be carping criticism to point out-as some, purists one may call them, have done-that in poetising and aesthetising the spiritual truth and reality, in trying to make it human and terrestrial, he has diminished and diluted the original Substance, in endeavouring to render the diamond iridescent, he has turned it into a baser alloy. Tagore's is a poetic soul, it must be admitted; and it is not necessary that one should find in his ideas and experiences and utterances the cent per cent accuracy and inevitability of a Yogic consciousness. Still his major perceptions, those that count, stand and are borne out by the highest spiritual realisation.
Tagore is no inventor or innovator when he posits Spirit as Beauty, the spiritual consciousness as the ardent rhythm of ecstasy. This experience is the very core of Vaishnavism and for which Tagore is sometimes called a Neo-Vaishnava. The Vaishnava sees the world pulsating in glamorous beauty as the Lila (Play) of the Lord, and the Lord, God himself, is nothing but Love and Beauty. Still Tagore is not all Vaishnava or merely a Vaishnava; he is in addition a modern (the carping voice will say, there comes the dilution and adulteration)in the sense that problems exist for himsocial, political, economic, national, humanitarianwhich have to be faced and solved: these are not merely mundane, but woven into the texture of the fundamental problem of human destiny, of Soul and Spirit and God. A Vaishnava was, in spite of his acceptance of the world, an introvert, to use a modern psychological phrase, not necessarily in the pejorative sense, but in the neutral scientific sense. He looks upon the universe' and human life as the play of the Lord, as an actuality and not mere illusion indeed; but he does not participate or even take interest in the dynamic working out of the world process, he does not care to know, has no need of knowing that there is a terrestrial purpose and a diviner fulfilment of the mortal life upon earth. The Vaishnava dwells more or less absorbed in the Vaikuntha of his inner consciousness; the outer world, although real, is only a symbolic shadowplay to which he can but be a witness-real, is only a nothing more.
01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Compels all Substance by her wand of Mind.
Mind is a mediator divinity:
01.06 - On Communism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The individual must find himself and establish his secret god-head, and then only, when such free and integral individualities meet and reciprocate and coalesce, can the community they form have a living reality and a permanent potency. On the other hand, unless individuals come together and through the interchange of each other's soul and Substance' enhance the communal Godhead, the separate individual godheads also will not manifest in their supreme and sovereign powers.
If society, that is to say, community, be the fieldkshetra for the individual to live, move and have its being, then we must begin at the very outset with the community itself, at least, with a nucleus that will go to form such a thing. The fear that the untimely grouping together of immature souls may crush out individuality and dig its own grave has, no doubt, sufficient justification behind it to deter one from the attempt; but neither can we be certain that souls nursed and nourished in solitary cells, absolutely apart from any mellowing and broadening influence of the outside world will ever reach to that stage of perfect maturity when they will suddenly and spontaneously break open their cells and recognise in one another the communal brother-self.
01.07 - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The process of conversion of the doubting mind, of the dry intellectual reason as propounded and perhaps practised by Pascal is also a characteristic mark of his nature and genius. It is explained in his famous letter on "bet" or "game of chance" (Le Pari). Here is how he puts the issue to the doubting mind (I am giving the Substance, not his words): let us say then that in the world we are playing a game of chance. How do the chances stand? What are the gains and losses if God does not exist? What 'are the gains and losses if God does exist? If God exists, by accepting and reaching him what do we gain? All that man cares forhappiness, felicity. And what do we lose? We lose the world of misery. If, on the other 'hand, God does not exist, by believing him to exist, we lose nothing, we are not more miserable than what we are. If, however, God exists and we do not believe him, we gain this world of misery but we lose all that is worth having. Thus Pascal concludes that even from the standpoint of mere gain and loss, belief in God is more advantageous than unbelief. This is how he applied to metaphysics the mathematics of probability.
One is not sure if such reasoning is convincing to the intellect; but perhaps it is a necessary stage in conversion. At least we can conclude that Pascal had to pass through such a stage; and it indicates the difficulty his brain had to undergo, the tension or even the torture he made it pass through. It is true, from Reason Pascal went over to Faith, even while giving Reason its due. Still it seems the two were not perfectly synthetised or fused in him. There was a gap between that was not thoroughly bridged. Pascal did not possess the higher, intuitive, luminous mind that mediates successfully between the physical discursive ratiocinative brain-mind and the vision of faith: it is because deep in his consciousness there lay this chasm. Indeed,Pascal's abyss (l' abme de Pascal) is a well-known legend. Pascal, it appears, used to have very often the vision of an abyss about to open before him and he shuddered at the prospect of falling into it. It seems to us to be an experience of the Infinity the Infinity to which he was so much attracted and of which he wrote so beautifully (L'infiniment grand et l'infiniment petit)but into which he could not evidently jump overboard unreservedly. This produced a dichotomy, a lack of integration of personality, Jung would say. Pascal's brain was cold, firm, almost rigid; his heart was volcanic, the faith he had was a fire: it lacked something of the pure light and burned with a lurid glare.
01.07 - The Bases of Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is this persuasion which, has led many spiritual souls, siddhas, to declare that theirs is not the kingdom upon this earth, but that the kingdom of Heaven is within. And it is why great lovers of humanity have sought not to eradicate but only to mitigate, as far as possible, the ills of life. Earth and life, it is said, contain in their last analysis certain ugly and loathsome realities which are an inevitable and inexorable part of their Substance and to eliminate one means to annihilate the other. What can be done is to throw a veil over the nether regions in human nature, to put a ban on their urges and velleities and to create opportunities to make social arrangements so that the higher impulses only find free play while the lower impulses, for want of scope and indulgence, may fall down to a harmless level. This is what the Reformists hope and want and no more. Life is based upon animality, the soul is encased in an earth-sheathman needs must procreate, man needs must seek food. But what human effort can achieve is to set up barriers and limitations and form channels and openings, which will restrain these impulses, allow them a necessary modicum of play and which for the greater part will serve to encourage and enhance the nobler urges in man. Of course, there will remain always the possibility of the whole scaffolding coming down with a crash and the aboriginal in man running riot in his nudity. But we have to accept the chance and make the best of what materials we have in hand.
No doubt this is a most dismal kind of pessimism. But it is the logical conclusion of all optimism that bases itself upon a particular view of human nature. If we question that pessimism, we have to question the very grounds of our optimism also. As a matter of fact, all our idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different IntuitionWeltanschauung.
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What then is required is a complete spiritual regeneration in man, a new structure of his soul and Substancenot merely the realisation of the highest and supreme Truth in mental and emotional consciousness, but the translation and application of the law of that truth in the power of the vital. It is here that failed all the great spiritual or rather religious movements of the past. They were content with evoking the divine in the mental being, but left the vital becoming to be governed by the habitual un-divine or at the most to be just illumined by a distant and faint glow which served, however, more to distort than express the Divine.
The Divine Nature only can permanently reform the vital nature that is ours. Neither laws and institutions, which are the results of that vital nature, nor ideas and ideals which are often a mere revolt from and more often an auxiliary to it, can comm and the power to regenerate society. If it is thought improbable for any group of men to attain to that God Nature, then there is hardly any hope for mankind. But improbable or probable, that is the only way which man has to try and test, and there is none other.
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yoga, then, comes at this stage and offers the solution in its power of what we may call Transubstantiation. That is to say, here the mere form is not changed, nor the functions restrained, regulated and purified, but the very Substance of the instincts is transmuted. The power of conscious control is a power of the human will, i.e. of an individual personal will and therefore necessarily limited both in intent and extent. It is a power complementary to the power of Nature, it may guide and fashion the latter according to a new pattern, but cannot change the basic Substance, the stuff of Nature. To that end yoga seeks a power that transcends the human will, brings into play the supernal puissance of a Divine Will.
This is the real meaning and sense of the moral struggle in man, the continuous endeavour towards a transvaluation of the primary and aboriginal instincts and impulses. Looked at from one end, from below up the ascending line, man's ethical and spiritual ideals are a dissimulation and sublimation of the animal impulsions. But this is becauseas we see, if we look from the other end, from above down the descending lineman is not all instinct, he is not a mere blind instrument in the hands of Nature forces. He has in him another source, an opposite pole of being from which other impulsions flow and continually modify the structure of the lower levels. If the animal is the foundation of his nature, the divine is its summit. If the bodily demands form his manifest reality, the demands of the spirit enshrine his higher reality. And if as regards the former he is a slave, as regards the latter he is the Master. It is by the interaction of these double forces that his whole nature has been and is being fashioned. Man does not and cannot give carte blanche to his vital, inclinations, since there is a pressure upon them of higher forces coming down from his mental and spiritual levels. It is these latter which have deviated him from the direct line of the pure animal life.
Thus then we may distinguish three types of control on three levels. First, the natural control, secondly the conscious, i.e. to say the mental the ethical and religious control, and thirdly the spiritual or divine control. Now the spirit is the ultimate truth and reality, behind the forces that act in the mind and in the body, so that the natural control and the ethical control are mere attempts to establish and realise the spiritual control. The animal impulses feel the hidden stress of the divine urges that are their real essence and thus there rises first an unconscious conflict in the natural life and then a conscious conflict in the higher ethical life. But when both of these are transcended and the conflict is carried on to a still higher level, then do we find their real significance and arrive at the consummation to which they move. Yoga is the ultimate transvaluation of physical (and of moral) values, it is the trans-substantiation of life-power into its spiritual Substance.
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01.08 - Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is never possible for man, weak and bound as he is, to reject the thraldom of his flesh, he can never purify himself wholly by his own unaided strength. God in his infinite mercy sent his own son, an emanation created out of his Substancehis embodied loveas a human being to suffer along with men and take upon himself the burden of their sins. God the Son lived upon earth as man and died as man. Sin therefore has no longer its final or definitive hold upon mankind. Man has been made potentially free, pure and worthy of salvation. This is the mystery of Christ, of God the Son. But there is a further mystery. Christ not only lived for all men for all time, whether they know him, recognise him or not; but he still lives, he still chooses his beloved and his beloved chooses him, there is a conscious acceptance on either side. This is the function of the Holy Ghost, the redeeming power of Love active in him who accepts it and who is accepted by it, the dynamic Christ-Consciousness in the true Christian.
Indeed, the kernel of the mystic discipline and its whole bearingconsists in one and only one principle: to love Jhesu. All roads lead to Rome: all preparations, all trials lead to one realisation, love of God, God as a living person close to us, our friend and lover and master. The Christian mystic speaks almost in the terms of the Gita: Rise above your senses, give up your ego-hood, be meek and humble, it is Jesus within you, who embraces your soul: it is he who does everything for you and in you, give yourself up wholly into his hands. He will deliver you.
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Indeed, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Eastern and Western approach to Divine Love, the Christian and the Vaishnava, for example. Indian spirituality, whatever its outer form or credal formulation, has always a background of utter unity. This unity, again, is threefold or triune and is expressed in those great Upanishadic phrases,mahvkyas,(1) the transcendental unity: the One alone exists, there is nothing else than theOneekamevdvityam; (2) the cosmic unity: all existence is one, whatever exists is that One, thereare no separate existences:sarvam khalvidam brahma neha nnsti kincaa; (3) That One is I, you too are that One:so' ham, tattvamasi; this may be called the individual unity. As I have said, all spiritual experiences in India, of whatever school or line, take for granted or are fundamentally based upon this sense of absolute unity or identity. Schools of dualism or pluralism, who do not apparently admit in their tenets this extreme monism, are still permeated in many ways with that sense and in some form or other take cognizance of the truth of it. The Christian doctrine too says indeed, 'I and my Father in Heaven are one', but this is not identity, but union; besides, the human soul is not admitted into this identity, nor the world soul. The world, we have seen, according to the Christian discipline has to be altogether abandoned, negatived, as we go inward and upward towards our spiritual status reflecting the divine image in the divine company. It is a complete rejection, a cutting off and casting away of world and life. One extreme Vedantic path seems to follow a similar line, but there it is not really rejection, but a resolution, not the rejection of what is totally foreign and extraneous, but a resolution of the external into its inner and inmost Substance, of the effect into its original cause. Brahman is in the world, Brahman is the world: the world has unrolled itself out of the Brahmansi, pravttiit has to be rolled back into its, cause and Substance if it is to regain its pure nature (that is the process of nivitti). Likewise, the individual being in the world, "I", is the transcendent being itself and when it withdraws, it withdraws itself and the whole world with it and merges into the Absolute. Even the Maya of the Mayavadin, although it is viewed as something not inherent in Brahman but superimposed upon Brahman, still, has been accepted as a peculiar power of Brahman itself. The Christian doctrine keeps the individual being separate practically, as an associate or at the most as an image of God. The love for one's neighbour, charity, which the Christian discipline enjoins is one's love for one's kind, because of affinity of nature and quality: it does not dissolve the two into an integral unity and absolute identity, where we love because we are one, because we are the One. The highest culmination of love, the very basis of love, according to the Indian conception, is a transcendence of love, love trans-muted into Bliss. The Upanishad says, where one has become the utter unity, who loves whom? To explain further our point, we take two examples referred to in the book we are considering. The true Christian, it is said, loves the sinner too, he is permitted to dislike sin, for he has to reject it, but he must separate from sin the sinner and love him. Why? Because the sinner too can change and become his brother in spirit, one loves the sinner because there is the possibility of his changing and becoming a true Christian. It is why the orthodox Christian, even such an enlightened and holy person as this mediaeval Canon, considers the non-Christian, the non-baptised as impure and potentially and fundamentally sinners. That is also why the Church, the physical organisation, is worshipped as Christ's very body and outside the Church lies the pagan world which has neither religion nor true spirituality nor salvation. Of course, all this may be symbolic and it is symbolic in a sense. If Christianity is taken to mean true spirituality, and the Church is equated with the collective embodiment of that spirituality, all that is claimed on their behalf stands justified. But that is an ideal, a hypothetical standpoint and can hardly be borne out by facts. However, to come back to our subject, let us ow take the second example. Of Christ himself, it is said, he not only did not dislike or had any aversion for Judas, but that he positively loved the traitor with a true and sincere love. He knew that the man would betray him and even when he was betraying and had betrayed, the Son of Man continued to love him. It was no make-believe or sham or pretence. It was genuine, as genuine as anything can be. Now, why did he love his enemy? Because, it is said, the enemy is suffered by God to do the misdeed: he has been allowed to test the faith of the faithful, he too has his utility, he too is God's servant. And who knows even a Judas would not change in the end? Many who come to scoff do remain to pray. But it can be asked, 'Does God love Satan too in the same way?' The Indian conception which is basically Vedantic is different. There is only one reality, one truth which is viewed differently. Whether a thing is considered good or evil or neutral, essentially and truly, it is that One and nothing else. God's own self is everywhere and the sage makes no difference between the Brahmin and the cow and the elephant. It is his own self he finds in every person and every objectsarvabhtsthitam yo mm bhajati ekatvamsthitah"he has taken his stand upon oneness and loves Me in all beings."2
This will elucidate another point of difference between the Christian's and the Vaishnava's love of God, for both are characterised by an extreme intensity and sweetness and exquisiteness of that divine feeling. This Christian's, however, is the union of the soul in its absolute purity and simplicity and "privacy" with her lord and master; the soul is shred here of all earthly vesture and goes innocent and naked into the embrace of her Beloved. The Vaishnava feeling is richer and seems to possess more amplitude; it is more concrete and less ethereal. The Vaishnava in his passionate yearning seeks to carry as it were the whole world with him to his Lord: for he sees and feels Him not only in the inmost chamber of his soul, but meets Him also in and I through his senses and in and through the world and its objects around. In psychological terms one can say that the Christian realisation, at its very source, is that of the inmost soul, what we call the "psychic being" pure and simple, referred to in the book we are considering; as: "His sweet privy voice... stirreth thine heart full stilly." Whereas the Vaishnava reaches out to his Lord with his outer heart too aflame with passion; not only his inmost being but his vital being also seeks the Divine. This bears upon the occult story of man's spiritual evolution upon earth. The Divine Grace descends from the highest into the deepest and from the deepest to the outer ranges of human nature, so that the whole of it may be illumined and transformed and one day man can embody in his earthly life the integral manifestation of God, the perfect Epiphany. Each religion, each line of spiritual discipline takes up one limb of manone level or mode of his being and consciousness purifies it and suffuses it with the spiritual and divine consciousness, so that in the end the whole of man, in his integral living, is recast and remoulded: each discipline is in charge of one thread as it were, all together weave the warp and woof in the evolution of the perfect pattern of a spiritualised and divinised humanity.
The conception of original sin is a cardinal factor in Christian discipline. The conception, of sinfulness is the very motive-power that drives the aspirant. "Seek tensely," it is said, "sorrow and sigh deep, mourn still, and stoop low till thine eye water for anguish and for pain." Remorse and grief are necessary attendants; the way of the cross is naturally the calvary strewn with pain and sorrow. It is the very opposite of what is termed the "sunlit path" in spiritual ascension. Christian mystics have made a glorious spectacle of the process of "dying to the world." Evidently, all do not go the whole length. There are less gloomy and happier temperaments, like the present one, for example, who show an unusual balance, a sturdy common sense even in the midst of their darkest nights, who have chalked out as much of the sunlit path as is possible in this line. Thus this old-world mystic says: it is true one must see and admit one's sinfulness, the grosser and apparent and more violent ones as well as all the subtle varieties of it that are in you or rise up in you or come from the Enemy. They pursue you till the very end of your journey. Still you need not feel overwhelmed or completely desperate. Once you recognise the sin in you, even the bare fact of recognition means for you half the victory. The mystic says, "It is no sin as thou feelest them." The day Jesus gave himself away on the Cross, since that very day you are free, potentially free from the bondage of sin. Once you give your adherence to Him, the Enemies are rendered powerless. "They tease the soul, but they harm not the soul". Or again, as the mystic graphically phrases it: "This soul is not borne in this image of sin as a sick man, though he feel it; but he beareth it." The best way of dealing with one's enemies is not to struggle and "strive with them." The aspirant, the lover of Jesus, must remember: "He is through grace reformed to the likeness of God ('in the privy Substance of his soul within') though he neither feel it nor see it."
If you are told you are still full of sins and you are not worthy to follow the path, that you must go and work out your sins first, here is your answer: "Go shrive thee better: trow not this saying, for it is false, for thou art shriven. Trust securely that thou art on the way, and thee needeth no ransacking of shrift for that that is passed, hold forth thy way and think on Jerusalem." That is to say, do not be too busy with the difficulties of the moment, but look ahead, as far as possible, fix your attention upon the goal, the intermediate steps will become easy. Jerusalem is another name of the Love of Jesus or the Bliss in Heaven. Grow in this love, your sins will fade away of themselves. "Though thou be thrust in an house with thy body, nevertheless in thine heart, where the stead of love is, thou shouldst be able to have part of that love... " What exquisite utterance, what a deep truth!
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The differentia, in each case, lies in the degree and nature of consciousness, since it is consciousness that forms the Substance and determines the mode of being. Now, the inorganic is characterised by un-consciousness, the vegetable by sub-consciousness, the animal by consciousness and man by self-consciousness. Man knows that he knows, an animal only knows; a plant does not even know, it merely feels or senses; matter cannot do that even, it simply acts or rather is acted upon. We are not concerned here, however, with the last two forms of being; we will speak of the first two only.
We say, then, that man is distinguished from the animal by his having consciousness as it has, but added to it the consciousness of self. Man acts and feels and knows as much as the animal does; but also he knows that he acts, he knows that he feels, he knows that he knowsand this is a thing the animal cannot do. It is the awakening of the sense of self in every mode of being that characterises man, and it is owing to this consciousness of an ego behind, of a permanent unit of reference, which has modified even the functions of knowing and feeling and acting, has refashioned them in a mould which is not quite that of the animal, in spite of a general similarity.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming that is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature, must seize God in his highest and sovereign status. No prejudice of the past, no notion of our mental habits must seek to impose its law. Thus, for example, in the matter of redeeming the senses by the influx of the higher light, our author seems to consider that the senses will remain more or less as they are, only they will be controlled, guided, used by the higher light. And he seems to think that even the sex relation (even the institution of marriage) may continue to remain, but sublimated, submitted to the laws of the Higher Order. This, according to us, is a dangerous compromise and is simply the imposition of the lower law upon the higher. Our view of the total transformation and divinisation of the Lower is altogether different. The Highest must come down wholly and inhabit in the Lowest, the Lowest must give up altogether its own norms and lift itself into the Substance and form too of the Highest.
Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the darkest horrors and monstrosities that man and nature hide in their subconscient and inconscient dungeons of material existence, all these have to be laid bare to the solar gaze of Heaven, burnt or transmuted as demanded by the law of that Supreme Will. That is the Hell that has to be recognised, not rejected and thrown away, but taken up purified and transubstantiated into the body of Heaven itself. The hand of the Highest Heaven must extend and touch the Lowest of the lowest elements, transmute it and set it in its rightful place of honour. A mortal body reconstituted into an immemorial fossil, a lump of coal revivified into a flashing carat of diamond-that shows something of the process underlying the nuptials of which we are speaking.
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Satan proposes to lead man down into hell through a sure means, nothing more sure, according to him, viz., love for a woman and a woman's love in return. Nothing like that to make man earth-bound or hell-bound and force out of him the nostalgic cry, "Time must have a stop." A most simple, primal and primeval lyric love will most suit Satan's purpose. Hence the Margaret episode. Love=Passion=Lust=Hell; that is the inevitable equation sequence, and through which runs the magic thread of infatuation. And that charm is invincible. Satan did succeed and was within an ace, as they say, of the final and definitive triumph: but that was not to be, for he left out of account an incalculable element. Love, even human love has, at least can have, a wonderful power, the potency of reversing the natural decree and bring about a supernatural intervention. Human love can at a crucial momentin extremiscall down the Divine Grace, which means God's love for man. And the soul meant for perdition and about to be seized and carried away by Satan finds itself suddenly free and lifted up and borne by Heaven's messengers. Human Jove is divine love itself in earthly form and figure and whatever its apparent aberrations it is in soul and Substance that thing. Satan is hoisted with his own petard. That is God's irony.
But Goethe's Satan seems to know or feel something of his fate. He knows his function and the limit too of his function. He speaks of the doomsday for people, but it is his doomsday also, he says in mystic terms. Yes, it is his doomsday, for it is the day of man's liberation. Satan has to release man from the pact that stands cancelled. The soul of man cannot be sold, even if he wanted it.
--
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the Substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
***
01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Our poet is too self-conscious, he himself feels that he has not the perfect voice. A Homer, even a Milton possesses a unity of tone and a wholeness of perception which are denied to the modern. To the modern, however, the old masters are not subtle enough, broad enough, psychological enough, let us say the word, spiritual enough. And yet the poetic inspiration, more than the religious urge, needs the injunction not to be busy with too many things, but to be centred upon the one thing needful, viz., to create poetically and not to discourse philosophically or preach prophetically. Not that it is impossible for the poet to swallow the philosopher and the prophet, metabolising them into the Substance of his bone and marrow, of "the trilling wire in his blood", as Eliot graphically expresses. That perhaps is the consummation towards which poetry is tending. But at present, in Eliot, at least, the strands remain distinct, each with its own temper and rhythm, not fused and moulded into a single streamlined form of beauty. Our poet flies high, very high indeed at times, often or often he flies low, not disdaining the perilous limit of bathos. Perhaps it is all wilful, it is a mannerism which he cherishes. The mannerism may explain his psychology and enshrine his philosophy. But the poet, the magician is to be looked for elsewhere. In the present collection of poems it is the philosophical, exegetical, discursive Eliot who dominates: although the high lights of the subject-matter may be its justification. Still even if we have here doldrums like
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence
01.14 - Nicholas Roerich, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ex oriente lux. Out of the East the Light, and that light is of the nature and Substance of beauty, of creative and dynamic beauty in the life the spirit. This, I suppose, is Roerich's message in a nutshell. The Light of the East is always the light of the ample consciousness that dwells on the heights of our being in God.
The call that stirred a Western soul, made him a wanderer over the world in quest of the Holy Grail and finally lodged him in the Home of the Snows is symbolic of a more than individual destiny. It is representative of the secret history of a whole culture and civilisation that have been ruling humanity for some centuries, its inner want and need and hankering and fulfilment. The West shall come to the East and be reborn. That is the prophecy of occult seers and sages.
0.11 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
say that the emanation is made up of the very Substance of
the emanator, whereas the formation is made up of a Substance
external to the formator.
--
like a child made from the Substance of its mother and that the
formation is like a living statue made out of a material external
0 1958-02-03b - The Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The supramental world exists in a permanent way, and I am there permanently in a supramental body. I had proof of this today when my earthly consciousness went there and consciously remained there between two and three oclock in the afternoon: I now know that for the two worlds to join in a constant and conscious relationship what is missing is an intermediate zone between the existing physical world and the supramental world as it exists. This zone has yet to be built, both in the individual consciousness and in the objective world, and it is being built. When formerly I used to speak of the new world that is being created, I was speaking of this intermediate zone. And similarly, when I am on this side that is, in the realm of the physical consciousness and I see the supramental power, the supramental light and Substance constantly permeating matter, I am seeing and participating in the construction of this zone.
I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big as a city, is thoroughly organized, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organization was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the supramental life are being trained. These people (or at least a part of their being) had already undergone a supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a supramental Substance. This Substance itself was of the most material supramental, the supramental Substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform Substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that the light was like that, the people were like thateverything had this color, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of the education, the training in all domains by which the people on board were being prepared.
This immense ship had just arrived at the shore of the supramental world, and a first batch of people destined to become the future inhabitants of the supramental world were about to disembark. Everything was arranged for this first landing. A certain number of very tall beings were posted on the wharf. They were not human beings and never before had they been men. Nor were they permanent inhabitants of the supramental world. They had been delegated from above and posted there to control and supervise the landing. I was in charge of all this since the beginning and throughout. I myself had prepared all the groups. I was standing on the bridge of the ship, calling the groups forward one by one and having them disembark on the shore. The tall beings posted there seemed to be reviewing those who were disembarking, allowing those who were ready to go ashore and sending back those who were not and who had to continue their training aboard the ship. While standing there watching everyone, that part of my consciousness coming from here became extremely interested: it wanted to see, to identify all the people, to see how they had changed and to find out who had been taken immediately as well as those who had to remain and continue their training. After awhile, as I was observing, I began to feel pulled backwards and that my body was being awakened by a consciousness or a person from here1and in my consciousness, I protested: No, no, not yet! Not yet! I want to see whos there! I was watching all this and noting it with intense interest It went on like that until, suddenly, the clock here began striking three, which violently jerked me back. There was the sensation of a sudden fall into my body. I came back with a shock, but since I had been called back very suddenly, all my memory was still intact. I remained quiet and still until I could bring back the whole experience and preserve it.
The nature of objects on this ship was not that which we know upon earth; for example, the clothes were not made of cloth, and this thing that resembled cloth was not manufacturedit was a part of the body, made of the same Substance that took on different forms. It had a kind of plasticity. When a change had to be made, it was done not by artificial and outer means but by an inner working, by a working of the consciousness that gave the Substance its form or appearance. Life created its own forms. There was ONE SINGLE Substance in all things; it changed the nature of its vibration according to the needs or uses.
Those who were sent back for more training were not of a uniform color; their bodies seemed to have patches of a grayish opacity, a Substance resembling the earth Substance. They were dull, as though they had not been wholly permeated by the light or wholly transformed. They were not like this all over, but in places.
The tall beings on the shore were not of the same color, at least they did not have this orange tint; they were paler, more transparent. Except for a part of their bodies, only the outline of their forms could be seen. They were very tall, they did not seem to have a skeletal structure, and they could take on any form according to their needs. Only from their waists to their feet did they have a permanent density, which was not felt in the rest of their body. Their color was much more pallid and contained very little red, it verged rather on gold or even white. The parts of whitish light were translucid; they were not absolutely transparent, but less dense, more subtle than the orange Substance.
Just as I was called back, when I was saying, Not yet , I had a quick glimpse of myself, of my form in the supramental world. I was a mixture of what these tall beings were and the beings aboard the ship. The top part of myself, especially my head, was a mere silhouette of a whitish color with an orange fringe. The more it approached the feet, the more the color resembled that of the people on the ship, or in other words, orange; the more it went up towards the top, the more translucid and white it was, and the red faded. The head was only a silhouette with a brilliant sun at its center; from it issued rays of light which were the action of the will.
--
What I can say is that the criterion or the judgment was based EXCLUSIVELY on the Substance constituting the peoplewhe ther they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special Substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily Substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.
When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the Substance to connectand it is this link that is being built. At that time, my impression (an impression which remained rather long, almost the whole day) was of an extreme relativityno, not exactly that, but an impression that the relationship between this world and the other completely changes the criterion by which things are to be evaluated or judged. This criterion had nothing mental about it, and it gave the strange inner feeling that so many things we consider good or bad are not really so. It was very clear that everything depended upon the capacity of things and upon their ability to express the supramental world or be in relationship with it. It was so completely different, at times even so opposite to our ordinary way of looking at things! I recall one little thing that we usually consider bad actually how funny it was to see that it is something excellent! And other things that we consider important were really quite unimportant there! Whether it was like this or like that made no difference. What is very obvious is that our appreciation of what is divine or not divine is incorrect. I even laughed at certain things Our usual feeling about what is anti-divine seems artificial, based upon something untrue, unliving (besides, what we call life here appeared lifeless in comparison with that world); in any event, this feeling should be based upon our relationship between the two worlds and according to whether things make this relationship easier or more difficult. This would thus completely change our evaluation of what brings us nearer to the Divine or what takes us away from Him. With people, too, I saw that what helps them or prevents them from becoming supramental is very different from what our ordinary moral notions imagine. I felt just how ridiculous we are.
(Then Mother speaks to the children)
--
A true, sincere, spontaneous life, as in the supramental world, is a springing forth of things through the fact of conscious will, a power over Substance that shapes this Substance according to what we decide it should be. And he who has this power and this knowledge can obtain whatever he wants, whereas he who does not has no artificial means of getting what he desires.
In ordinary life, EVERYTHING is artificial. Depending upon the chance of your birth or circumstances, you have a more or less high position or a more or less comfortable life, not because it is the spontaneous, natural and sincere expression of your way of being and of your inner need, but because the fortuity of lifes circumstances has placed you in contact with these things. An absolutely worthless man may be in a very high position, and a man who might have marvelous capacities of creation and organization may find himself toiling in a quite limited and inferior position, whereas he would be a wholly useful individual if the world were sincere.
0 1958-03-07, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
On the way, I stopped at J and Es place. They are living like native fishermen, in loincloths, in a coconut grove by the sea. The place is exceedingly beautiful, and the sea full of rainbow-hued coral. And suddenly, within twenty-four hours, I realized an old dreamor rather, I purged myself of an old and tenacious dream: that of living on a Pacific island as a simple fisherman. And all at once, I saw, in a flash, that this kind of life totally lacks a center. You float in a nowhere. It plunges you into some kind of higher inertia, an illumined inertia, and you lose all true Substance.
As for me, I am totally out of my element in this new life, as though I were uprooted from myself. I am living in the temple, in the midst of pujas,1 with white ashes on my forehead, barefoot dressed like a Hindu, sleeping on cement at night, eating impossible curries, with some good sunburns to complete the cooking. And there I am, clinging to you, for if you were not there I would collapse, so absurd would it all be. You are the only realityhow many times have I repeated this to myself, like a litany! Apart from this, I am holding up quite well physically. But inside and outside, nothing is left but you. I need you, thats all. Mother, this world is so horrifyingly empty. I really feel that I would evaporate if you werent there. Well, no doubt I had to go through this experience Perhaps I will be able to extract some book from it that will be of use to you. We are like children who need a lot of pictures in order to understand, and a few good kicks to realize our complete stupidity.
0 1958-05-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The difficulty is greater for Westerners than for Indians. Its as though their Substance were steeped in falsehood. It also happens with Indians, of course, but generally the falsehood is much more in the vital than in the physicalbecause after all, the physical has been utilized by bodies belonging to enlightened beings. The European Substance seems steeped in rebellion; in the Indian Substance this rebelliousness is subdued by an influence of surrender. The other day, someone was telling me about some Europeans with whom he corresponds, and I said, But tell them to read, to learn, to follow The Synthesis of Yoga!it leads you straight to the path. Whereupon he replied, Oh, but they say its full of talk on surrender, surrender, always surrender and they want none of it.
They want none of it! Even if the mind accepts, the body and the vital refuse. And when the body refuses, it refuses with the stubbornness of a stone.
0 1958-06-06 - Supramental Ship, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It is the result of the descent of the supramental Substance into Matter. Only this Substancewhat it has put into physical Mattercould have made it possible. It is a new ferment. From the material standpoint, it removes from physical Matter its tamas, the heaviness of its unconsciousness, and from the psychological standpoint, its ignorance and its falsehood. Matter is subtilized. But it has surely come only as a first experience to show how it will be.
It is truly a state of absolute omniscience and omnipotence in the body which changes all the vibrations around it.
--
Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something that makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All that is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new Substance and this new consciousness to such an extent that it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all that belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all that is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the Universe. And a whole part of humanity that has responded to these forces rather too zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.
May 1, 1958.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
They are beings who belong to the progressive creation of the universe and who have themselves presided over its formation from the most etheric or subtle regions to the most material regions. They are a descent of the divine creative Spirit that came to repair the mischief in short, to repair what the Asuras had done. The first makers created disorder and darkness, an unconsciousness, and then it is said that there was a second lineage of makers to repair that evil, and the gods gradually descended through realities that were ever moreone cant say dense because it isnt really dense, nor can one even say material, since matter as we know it does not exist on these planesthrough more and more concrete Substances.
All these zones, these planes of reality, received different names and were classified in different ways according to the occult schools, according to the different traditions, but there is an essential similarity, and if we go back far enough into the various traditions, hardly anything but words differ, depending upon the country and the language. The descriptions are quite similar. Moreover, those who climb back up the ladderor in other words, a human being who, through his occult knowledge, goes out of one of his bodies (they are called sheaths in English) and enters into a more subtle bodyin order to ACT in a more subtle body and so forth, twelve times (you make each body come out from a more material body, leaving the more material body in its corresponding zone, and then go off through successive exteriorizations), what they have seen, what they have discovered and seen through their ascensionwhe ther they are occultists from the Occident or occultists from the Orientis for the most part analogous in description. They have put different words on it, but the experience is very analogous.
0 1958-11-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
As it is, the physical body is really only a very disfigured shadow of the eternal life of the Self, but this physical body is capable of a progressive development; the physical Substance progresses through each individual formation, and one day it will be able to build a bridge between physical life as we know it and the supramental life that is to manifest.
***
0 1959-10-06 - Sri Aurobindos abode, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I found myself in another world, but not far away (I was not in a total trance). This world was almost as substantial as the physical world. There were roomsSri Aurobindos room with the bed he rests on and he was living there, he was there all the time: it was his abode. Even my room was there, with a large mirror like the one I have here, combs, all kinds of things. And the Substance of these objects was almost as dense as in the physical world, but they shone with their own light. It was not translucent, not transparent, not radiant, but self-luminous. The various objects and the material of the rooms did not have this same opacity as the physical objects here, they were not dry and hard as in the physical world we know.
And Sri Aurobindo was there, with a majesty, a magnificent beauty. He had all his beautiful hair as before. It was all so concrete, so substantialhe was even being served some kind of food. I remained there for one hour (I had looked at my watch before and I looked at it afterwards). I spoke to Sri Aurobindo, for I had some important questions to ask him about the way certain things are to be realized. He said nothing. He listened to me quietly and looked at me as if all my words were useless: he understood everything at once. And he answered me with a gesture and two expressions on his face, an unexpected gesture that did not at all correspond to any thought of mine; for example, he picked up three combs that were lying near the mirror (combs similar to those I use here, but larger) and he put them in his hair. He planted one comb in the middle of his head and the two others on each side, as if to gather all his hair over his temples. He was literally COIFFED with these three combs, which gave him a kind of crown. And I immediately understood that by this he meant that he was adopting my conception: You see, I embrace your conception of things, and I coif myself with it; it is my will. Anyway, I remained there for one hour.
0 1959-11-25, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
There is one element that remains fixed: for each type of atom, the inner organization of the elements is different, which is what creates the difference in their Substance. So perhaps similarly, each individual has a different, particular way of organizing the cells of his body, and it is this particular way that persists through all the outer changes. All the rest is undone and redone, but undone in a forward thrust towards the new instead of collapsing backwards into death, and redone in a constant aspiration to follow the progressive movement of the divine Truth.
But for that, the body the body-consciousness must first learn to widen itself. It is indispensable, for otherwise all the cells become a kind of boiling porridge under the pressure of the supramental light.
0 1960-09-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
I was watching all this sugar canepiles of sugar canewhich is thrown into the machine, and then it travels along and falls down to be crushed, crushed, and crushed some more. And then it comes back up to be distilled. And then I saw all this is living when its thrown in, you see, its full of its vital force, for it has just been cut. As a result, the vital force is suddenly hurled out of the Substance with an extreme violence the vital force comes out the English word angry is quite expressive of what I meanlike a snarling dog. An angry force.10
So I saw this I saw it moving about. And it kept coming and coming and coming, accumulating, piling up (they work 24 hours a day, six days a weekonly on the seventh do they rest). So I thought that this angry force must have some effect on the peoplewho knows, maybe this is what creates accidents. For I could see that once the sugar cane was fully crushed and had gone back up the chute, this force that had been beaten out was right there. And this worried me a little; I thought that there must be a certain danger in doing such a thing! What saves them is their ignorance and their insensitivity. But Indians are never entirely insensitive in the way Westerners arethey are much more open in their subconscious.
0 1960-12-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
And now, all these different attitudes which individuals, groups and categories of men hold are coming from every direction (while Im walking upstairs) to assert their own points of view as the true thing. And I see that for myself, Im being forced to deal with a whole mass of things, most of which are quite futile from an ordinary point of viewnot to mention the things of which these moral or religious types disapprove. Quite interestingly, all kinds of mental formations come like arrows while Im walking for my japa upstairs (Mother makes a gesture of little arrows in the air coming into her mental atmosphere from every direction); and yet, Im entirely in what I could call the joy and happiness of my japa, full of the energy of walking (the purpose of walking is to give a material energy to the experience, in all the bodys cells). Yet in spite of this, one thing after another comes, like this, like that (Mother draws little arrows in the air): what I must do, what I must answer to this person, what I must say to that one, what has to be done All kinds of things, most of which might be considered most futile! And I see that all this is SITUATED in a totality, and this totality I could say that its nothing but the body of the Divine. I FEEL it, actually, I feel it as if I were touching it everywhere (Mother touches her arms, her hands, her body). And all these things neither veil nor destroy nor divert this feeling of being entirely this a movement, an action in the body of the Divine. And its increasing from day to day, for it seems that He is plunging me more and more into entirely material things with the will that THERE TOO it must be done that all these things must be consciously full of Him; they are full of Him, in actual fact, but it must become conscious, with the perception that it is all the very Substance of His being which is moving in everything
It was quite beautiful on the balcony this morning
0 1961-01-10, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But as its all-powerful, a certain receptivity must be prepared on earth so its effects are not devastating. Sri Aurobindo has explained it in one of his letters. Someone asked him, Why doesnt this Love come now?, and he replied something like this: If divine Love in its essence were to manifest on earth, it would be like an explosion; for the earth is not supple enough or receptive enough to widen to the measure of this Love. The earth must not only open itself but become wide and supple. Matternot just physical Matter, but the Substance of the physical consciousness as wellis still much too rigid.
***
0 1961-01-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Later, Mother specified: 'These are elements in the material Substance entirely possessed by adverse forces and opposed to the transformation.'
On the previous day, January 21, Saraswati Puja, Mother had given a message and photos to each disciple.
0 1961-01-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This consciousness of immortality is OUR becoming conscious of the realms where immortality exists; but to bring immortality into the physical consciousness requires not only a transformation of physical consciousness but a transformation of physical Substance as well. So.
***
0 1961-01-31, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The physical mind, you see, makes use of the nervous Substance; if we withdraw it from the nervous Substance, we no longer feel anything, for thats what gives us the perception of sensation. We know something is wrong, but we no longer suffer from it.
This was a very important experience. Afterwards (especially yesterday afternoon and this morning), I gradually began to realize that this kind of indifferent detachment is the ESSENTIAL condition for the establishment of true Harmony in the most material Matter the most external, physical Matter (Mother pinches the skin of her hand).
0 1961-02-07, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So it would seem that if one wants to use his individuality, his body, to transform the whole that is, if one wants to use his bodily presence to act upon the universal corporeal Substance theres no end to it. No end to the difficulties, no end to the battle BATTLE!
(silence)
0 1961-02-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is one question I would very much like to ask you How can all this work you are doing on your body, this work of consciousness, act upon the corporeal Substance outside you? How is it generally valid?
In the same way as alwaysbecause the vibration spreads out! Thats how it works.
--
Thats how it works. Because all Substance is ONE. All is onewe constantly forget that! We always have a sense of separation, and that is total, total falsehood; its because we rely on what our eyes see, on (Mother touches her hands and arms, as if to indicate a separate body, cut off from other bodies). That is truly Falsehood. As soon as your consciousness changes a little, you realize that what we see is like an image plastered over something. But its not true, NOT TRUE AT ALL. Even in the most material Matter, even a stoneeven in a stoneas soon as ones consciousness changes, all this separation, all this division, completely vanishes. These are (how to put it?) modes of concentration (something akin to yet not quite that), vibratory modes WITHIN THE SAME THING.8
(The clock strikes) Oh, now I must go!
0 1961-02-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats really not the difficulty the difficulty is that the world is not ready! The very Substance one is made of (Mother touches her body) shares in the worlds lack of preparationnaturally! Its the same thing, the very same thing. Perhaps there is a tiny bit more light in this body, but so little that its not worth mentioning-its all the same thing. Oh, a sordid slavery!
(silence)
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A similar memory has recurred several times under different circumstancesnot exactly the same scene and the same images, because it wasnt something I was seeing but A LIFE I was living. During a certain period, at any time, night or day, I would experience a particular state of trance in which I was rediscovering a life I had lived. I was fully conscious that this life had to do with the first flowering of the human form upon earth, the first human forms able to incarnate the divine being from above. This was the first time I could manifest in a particular terrestrial form (not a general life but an individual form); that is, for the first time, through the mentalization of this material Substance, the junction between the higher Being and the lower being was made. I have lived that several times, and always in a similar setting and with quite a similar feeling of such joyous simplicity, without complexity, without problems, without all these questions. It was the blossoming of a joy of lifenothing but that; love and harmony prevailed: flowers, minerals, animals all got along together perfectly.
Things began to go wrong only a LONG time afterwards, long after (but this is a personal impression), probably because certain mental crystallizations were necessary, inevitable, for the general evolution, so that the mind might prepare itself to move on to something else. That was when oh, it seems like a fall into a pitinto ugliness, darkness! Everything became so dark, so ugly, so difficult, so painful. Really really the sense of a fall.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Something is happening there (Mother touches her head); something is taking shape, being worked on. Every day, twice a day, during my long evocation-invocation-aspiration (or prayer, if you like), I say to the Supreme Lord, Take possession of this brain. (I dont mean thought, I mean thisMo ther points to her headthis Substance inside.) Take possession of it!
Once during the night, I went exploring inside this head; some cells still had fresh imprints of things registered during the day for whatever reason they hadnt had time to be combined into the whole, so they showed up as tiny, very clear images, minuscule things utterly devoid of any mental or psychological movementsimply like tiny photographic images. There were three or four images like that, and it was so shocking to see them in this Presence that all at once I said to myself, Am I going mad?! It was that shocking. And I had to bring in a peace, a peacenot to make the movement of possession stop, but to accompany it simultaneously with a mighty peace so I wouldnt tell myself, Youre losing your head. Thats how shocking it was.
0 1961-07-15, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Actually, it springs from everything in material consciousness that can still be touched by the adverse forces; that is, not exactly the body-consciousness itself but, one could say, material Substance as it has been organized by the mind the initial mentalization of matter, the first stirrings of mind in life making the passage from animal to human. (The same complications would probably exist in animals, but as there is no question of trying to supramentalize animals, all goes well for them.) Well, something in there protests, and naturally this protest creates disorder. These past few days I have been seeing. No one has ever followed this path! Sri Aurobindo was the first, and he left without telling us what he was doing. I am literally hewing a path through a virgin forestits worse than a virgin forest.
For the past two days there has been the feeling of not knowing anythingNOTHING at all. I have had this feeling for a very long time, but now it has become extremely acute, as it always does at times of crisis, at times when things are on the verge of changingor of getting clarified, or of exploding, or. From the purely material standpointchemically, biologically, medically, therapeutically speaking I dont believe many people do know (there may be some). But it doesnt seem very clear to mein any case, I dont know. Yogically (I dont mean spiritually: that was the first stage of my sadhana), its very easy to be a saint! Oh, even to be a sage is very easy. I feel I was born with itits spontaneous and natural for me, and so simple! You know all that has to be done, and doing it is as easy as knowing it. Its nothing. But this transformation of Matter! What has to be done? How is it to be done? What is the path?
--
To be in a condition in which all is the Supreme, all is wonderful, all is marvelous, all is marvelous love, all is all is profound Joyan unchanging, immutable, ever-present condition. To live in That, and then to have this bodily Substance contradict it through every possible stupiditylosing sight, losing strength, pains here, pains there, disorders, weaknesses, incapacities of every type. And at the SAME TIME, the response within this body, no matter what happens to it, is, O Lord, Your Grace is infinite. The contradiction is VERY disconcerting.
From experience, I know perfectly well that when one is satisfied with being a saint or a sage and constantly maintains the right attitude, all goes well the body doesnt get sick, and even if there are attacks it recovers very easily; all goes very well AS LONG AS THERE IS NOT THIS WILL TO TRANSFORM. All the difficulties arise in protest against the will to transform; while if one says, Very well, its all right, let things be as they are, I dont care, I am perfectly happy, in a blissful state, then the body begins to feel content!
--
Everything depends upon the balance (not the equilibrium, the proportion) between the amount of resistance in physical Substance, and the Power.
But are these merely material resistances or are they rather hostile forces?
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Years ago, when Sri Aurobindo and I descended together from plane to plane (or from mode of life to mode of life) and reached the Subconscient, we saw that it was no longer individual: it was terrestrial. The rest the mind, the vital and of course the bodyis individualized; but when you descend below this level, thats no longer the case. There is indeed something between the conscious life of the body and this subconscious terrestrial lifeelements are thrown out1 as a result of the action of individual consciousness upon the subconscious Substance; this creates a kind of semiconsciousness, and that stays. For example, when people are told, You have pushed your difficulty down into the subconscient and it will resurface, this does not refer to the general Subconscient, but to something individualized out of the Subconscient through the action of individual consciousness and remaining down there until it resurfaces. The process is, so to speak, interminable, even the personal part of it.
Every night, you know, I continue to see more and more astounding things emerging from the Subconscient to be transformed. Its a kind of mixturenot clearly individualizedof all the things that have been more or less closely associated in life. For example, some people are intermingled there. One relives things almost as in a dream (although these are not dreams), one relives it all in a certain setting, within a certain set of symbolic, or at any rate expressive, circumstances. Just two days ago I had to deal with someone (I am actively at work there and I had to do something with him), and upon seeing this person, I asked myself, is he this one or that one? As I became less involved in the action and looked with a more objective consciousness, the witness-consciousness, I saw that it was simply a mixture of both personseverything is mixed in the Subconscient. Already when I lived in Japan there were four people I could never distinguish during my nighttime activitiesall four of them (and god knows they werent even acquainted!) were always intermingled because their subconscious reactions were identical.
0 1961-12-23, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It was a truly stupendous experience, petty though the object is (she is insignificant, without any great Substance or powera very minor incarnation; she does have certain not quite human capacities, but they are so veiled by a tiny human personality that scarcely anyone but I can see them).
And in the experience there was no difference between my physical and my inner being (actually, its that way more and more for me); even physically, externally, there was a kind of love full of adoration, and so spontaneousnot even any sense of wonder! And there was such a formidable Power in it, formidable from the standpoint of the entire earth. It lasted one hour. After an hour, the experience slowly began to fade (it had to fade for purely practical reasons). But it left me so confident of a radical changenot a total change, for it wasnt permanent but so radical that even outwardly, way down below in me, something was saying, Ah, how will the meditations with X be now? I caught Myself not thinking, not myself: someone thought like that, somewhere way down below. This pulled me out of the experience and I wondered, Thats strange, whos thinking like that? It was one of the personalities4 (in terms of work, its the one that gives each action its proper place), someone way down below, spontaneously feeling: But thats going to change the meditations! What will they be like now? When I returned and began to look at things with the usual discernment, I told myself that perhaps there actually will be a change.
0 1962-01-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a seat in my bathroom upstairs, and between the seat and the wall are two small tables (not tables, but small stools where a few things are kept), and a porcelain towel bar (luckily, everything has rounded corners). I found myself wedged in between the seat and the two small tables (a space about this wide!). And all that matter the material Substance of the table and the objects on the table and the porcelain seatit all seemed so unreceptive! It doesnt give way like it should for things to be comfortable; but it wasnt that my body was uncomfortable there was no body! The whole set-up was bizarre, everything was in a bizarre and absurd situation which I couldnt really understand, couldnt make out: Whats this big lump doing here, I seemed to be wondering, taking up so much room, getting in the way?
My elbow had ended up leaning on a little plastic tray I have there, where I keep pencils, ball-point pens, note pads and so forth. The body was leaning on this tray, evidently trying to get up, and the whole thing started cracking noisily under the weight. And in a diffuse but very clear consciousness I was saying to myself, But why? Whats all this ridiculous noise? And whats this heavy thing doing? What disorder. There shouldnt be such disorder. And it went on crack-crack-cracking. Then suddenly normal consciousness returnedto be exact, what returned was the normal RELATIONSHIP consciousness has with thingsand I said, Well, really! What a ridiculous situation! What is this elbow doing on that tray? It should realize its breaking it! And when things were all completely back to normal I told my body, What are you doing, you idiot! Come on, pick yourself up, get moving! Immediately, docile as a little child, it extricated itself, turned around, and stood up straightquite straight. I had scratched my knee, scratched my elbow, and taken three knocks on the head. Luckily there were no sharp edgesit was all hard enough, but no sharp edges. Anyway, in the end I was all right, no damage done.
--
For material Substance its a necessity.
Its exactly what I was complaining about: If this stuff cant go on without flagging, if it cant take it and absolutely has to relax, if it cant keep up with the movement of consciousness and just has to slacken from time to time, well how can it ever be supramentalized? Precisely what everyone has always said: It CANNOT hold the charge, it has to let go. It cant hold the charge of Energy. And especially THIS Energy, which seems almost abnormal to peoplean Energy that works like this (inflexible gesture) and can keep it up indefinitely.
--
Given the worlds present set-up, this is normal but if the supramental world were to be realized, it shouldnt remain normal. Clearly, a considerable change has to take place in the physical Substance. That will probably be the essential difference between the bodies fashioned by Natures methods and those to be fashioned by supramental knowledgea new element will come in, and we will no longer be natural. But so long as this natural element is present, well, a certain amount of patience is probably requiredlet the body catch its breath, otherwise something gives way.
It gets much less winded, of course, when you have the inner equality of the divine Presence. So much fatigue is due to excess tension produced by desire or effort or struggle, by the constant battle against all opposing forces. All that can go.
--
The criterion or the judgment [for passing the tests] was based EXCLUSIVELY on the Substance constituting the peoplewhe ther they belonged completely to the supramental world or not, whether they were made of this very special Substance. The criterion adopted was neither moral nor psychological. It is likely that their bodily Substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different.
And then you add:
0 1962-01-12 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There have been times, while working in the most material mind (the mind ingrained in the material Substance), when I felt my brain swelling and swelling and swelling, and my head becoming so large it seemed about to burst! On two occasions I was forced to stop, because it was (was it only an impression, or was it a fact?) in any event it seemed dangerous, as if the head would burst, because what was inside was becoming too tremendous (it was that power in Matter, that very powerful deep blue light which has such powerful vibrations; it is able to heal, for example, and change the functioning of the organsreally a very powerful thing materially). Well then, thats what was filling my head, more and more, more and more, and I had the feeling that my skull was (it was painful, you know) that there was a pressure inside my skull pushing out, pushing everything out. I wondered what was going to happen. Then, instead of following the movement, helping it along and going with it, I became immobile, passive, to see what would happen. And both times it stopped. I was no longer helping the movement along, you see, I simply remained passive and it came to a halt, there was a sort of stabilization.
(silence)
--
For thought, its elementary, very simple. Its not difficult for the feelings either; for the heart, the emotional being, to expand to the dimensions of the Supreme is relatively easy. But this body! Its very difficult, very difficult to do without the body losing its center (how can I put it?) its center of coagulationwithout it dissolving into the surrounding mass. Although, if one were in a natural environment, with mountains and forests and rivers, with lots of space and lots of natural beauty, it could be rather pleasant! But its physically impossible to take a single step outside ones body without meeting unpleasant, painful things. At times you come in contact with a pleasant Substance, something harmonious, warm, vibrating with a higher light; it happens. But its rare. Flowers, yes, sometimes flowers sometimes, not always. But this material world, oh! It batters you from all sides; it claws you, mauls youyou get clawed and scraped and battered by all sorts of things which which just dont blossom. How hard it all is! Oh, how closed human life is! How shriveled, hardened, without light, without warmth let alone joy.
While sometimes, when you see water flowing along, or a ray of sunlight in the treesoh, how it sings! The cells sing, they are happy.
0 1962-01-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And once the world has become like that, has become the vital world in all its darkness, and they, from this vital world, have created Matter, the supreme Mother sees (laughing) the result of her first four emanations and She turns towards the Supreme in a great entreaty: Now that this world is in such a dreadful state, it has to be saved! We cant just leave it this way, can we? It has to be saved, the divine consciousness must be given back to it. What to do? And the Supreme says, Thrust yourself into a new emanation, an emanation of the ESSENCE of Love, down into the most material Matter. That meant plunging into the earth (the earth had become a symbol and a representation of the whole drama). Plunge into Matter. So She plunged into Matter, and that became the primordial source of the Divine within material Substance. And from there (as is so well described in Savitri), She begins to act as a leaven in Matter, raising it up from within.
And as She plunged into the earth, a second series of emanations was sent forth the godsto inhabit the intermediary zones between Sachchidananda and the earth. And these gods (laughing) well, great care was taken to make them perfect, so they wouldnt give any trouble! But they are a bit a bit too perfect, arent they? Yes, a bit too perfect: they never make mistakes, they always do exactly as theyre told. In short, rather lacking in initiative. They do have some, but.
--
But there is one advantage: without those beings, without the worlds distortion, many things would be lacking. Those beings potentially embodied certain absolutely unique elementsunderstandably so, since they were the first wave. And precisely because they still WERE the Supreme to such a great extent, each one felt he was the Supreme, and that was that. Only it wasnt quite sufficient, for the simple reason that they were already divided into four, and one single division is enough to make everything go wrong. Its readily understandable: its not something essentially evil, but a question of wrong FUNCTIONING; its not the Substance, not the essence. The essence isnt evil, but the functioning is faulty.
But if you understand.
0 1962-02-03, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Japa, like meditation, is a procedureapparently the most active and effective procedure for joining, as much as possible, the Divine Presence to the bodily Substance. It is the magic of sound, you see.
Naturally, if theres also an awareness of the idea behind it, if one does japa as a very active CONSCIOUS invocation, then its effects are greatly multiplied. But the basis is the magic of sound. This is a fact of experience, and its absolutely true. The sound OM, for instance, awakens very special vibrations (there are other such sounds as well, but of course that one is the most powerful of all).
It is an attempt to divinize material Substance.
From another, almost identical point of view, it fills the physical atmosphere with the Divine Presence. So time spent in japa is time consecrated to helping the material Substance enter into more intimate rapport with the Divine.
And if one adds to this, as I do, a mantric program, that is, a sort of prayer or invocation, a program for both personal development and helping the collective, then it becomes a truly active work. Then theres also what I call external work: contact with others, reading and answering letters, seeing and speaking to people, and finally all the activities having to do with the organization and running of the Ashram (in meditation this work becomes worldwide, but physically, materially, it is limited for the moment to the Ashram).
0 1962-02-24, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This explanation is clear; and the healing was the result of tapasya. Its self-explanatory. Something was even saying to my body, to the bodys Substance, O unbelieving Substance, now you wont be able to say there are no miracles. Throughout all the work that was being done on the 20th, something was saying (I dont know who, because it doesnt come like something foreign to me any more, its like a Wisdom, it seems like a Wisdom, something that knows: not someone in particular, but that which knows, whatever its form), something that knows was insisting to the body, by showing it certain things, vibrations, movements, From now on, O unbelieving Substance, you cant say there are no miracles. Because the Substance itself is used to each thing having its effect, to illnesses following a particular course and certain things even being necessary for it to be cured. This process is very subtle, and it doesnt come from the intellect, which can have a totally different interpretation of it; its rather a kind of consciousness ingrained in physical Substance, and thats what was being addressed and being shown certain movements, certain vibrations and so forth: You see, from now on you cant say there are no miracles. In other words, a direct intervention of the Lord, who doesnt follow the beaten path, but does things in His own way.
There was also that attack (it was rather serious and threw the doctor into a fit of anxiety) which took place, I think, the day before sari distribution.6 The next morning, throughout the distribution, someone else seemed to have taken possession of my body and to be doing what had to be done, taking care of all the difficulties; I was comfortable, serene, simply like a carefree spectator. I had nothing to worry about, someone was. (What someone? Someone, something, I dont know, theres no more difference, its not delineated like that any more; but anyway, it was a being, a force, a consciousness perhaps a part of myself, I dont know; none of this is clear-cut; its quite precise, but not divided, very smoothMo ther makes a rounded gestureno breaks.) Something, then, a will or a force or a consciousness plainly a powerhad taken possession of the body and was doing all the work, looking after everything. I was witnessing everything, smiling. But its gone now. It came specifically for that work (I was in pretty bad shape); when the work was over, it dissolvedit didnt leave abruptly but it became inactive. Afterwards, I felt rather confident. Well in any case, I thought, something similar could happen on the 21st, since it just happened now.
--
And with this change, the bodily Substance, the very stuff of the cells, was constantly being told, Dont you forget, now you see that miracles CAN happen. In other words, the way things work out in physical Substance may not at all conform to the laws of Nature. Dont forget, now! It kept coming back like a refrain: Dont forget, now! This is how it is. And I saw how necessary this repetition was for the cells: they forget right away and try to find explanations (oh, how stupid can you be!). Its a sort of feeling (not at all an individual way of thinking), its Matters way of thinking. Matter is built like that, its part of its make-up. We call it thinking for lack of a better word, but its not thinking: it is a material way of understanding things, the way Matter is able to understand.
Oh, thats enough talk for now!
--
Tapas: literally, heat. It is the concentrated energy constituting everythingnot generated by some mechanism, but by the very concentration of the power of Consciousness (chit). In Indian tradition, the world was created by Tapas in the form of an egg the primordial eggwhich broke open from the incubating heat of consciousness-force and gave birth to the world. To "become the tapas of things" is to uncover in one's own material, bodily Substance that same formidable, supramental seat of energy (what physicists, following Einstein, call atomic energy: E = mc2), the energy that animates the stone and the bird and the universe for then like can act upon like. Mother was reaching that point.
***
0 1962-03-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The healing of Mother's legs: "Now, O unbelieving Substance, you can't say there are no miracles."
See conversation of February 24.
0 1962-05-15, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My physical consciousness has been universalized for a long, long time, it encompasses all terrestrial movements3; but the body is limited solely to this small concentration of Substance (Mother touches her body)thats what I call the body-consciousness.
And when I said, I have left the body,4 it certainly didnt mean I have left the physical consciousness my overall contact with the terrestrial world has remained the same. It concerns only the purely bodily aspect, the specific concretization or concentration of Substance giving each of us a different bodya different APPEARANCE.
And a rather illusory appearance, besides. As soon as you rise to a certain height (I saw it quite clearly during that progressive reconcretization5), this appearance quickly loses its reality. Our external appearance is very, very illusory. Our particular form (this ones form, that ones form), the form we see with our physical eyes is very superficial, you know. From the vital world onwards, its completely different.
0 1962-05-18, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was a relation, I kept a link with it, but it took some days to get established (I dont know how many, because for a long time I couldnt keep track of anything). After some days (say ten days, twenty days, I dont know), the will began to function, the body was again under the control of the will. But that didnt happen right away for some days, the will that deals with the body was annulled (I was entirely conscious and alive, but not in my body). The body was merely something moved around by the people looking after me. Not that it was separate, but I couldnt even say, its a body it wasnt anything any more! Something. Having undergone so much preparation, the universalization of the body-consciousness and all that, the experience didnt even seem strange to me (in fact, it was certainly the result of all that preparation). The body was something like a mass of Substance being driven by the will of the three people looking after it. Not that I was unaware of it but. I wasnt much concerned with it, to tell the truth; but as far as my attention was turned to it, it was a corporeal mass being moved around by a few wills. The supreme Will was in full agreement; the body had been entrusted, in a way (I dont know how to express this) yes, it was like something entrusted, and I was simply looking on I watched it all for I dont know how many days, with hardly any interest.
The one really concrete link was pain. Thats how the contact was kept.
--
What is coming back is the way objects the whole mass of material Substance making up this bodys environmenthad been organized; thats what is coming back, with some small changes (none of this comes through the head; the head has nothing to do with it). It is a sort of formation reconcretizing itself for lifes outer organization.
The old way of relating no longer exists at all.
0 1962-05-31, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the Substance of the body.
***
0 1962-06-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is indeed the case of Madame Thons sandals, which came and put themselves on her feet instead of her feet going and putting themselves in the sandals, but that that belongs to yet another realm. It wasnt what you would call a natural phenomenon: she was applying her will and her action, and the Substance of the sandals was becoming receptive. But does that mean the world will be that way? I dont know.
Two or three times, like a flash, I have seen something manifest, change place. But it was over in less time than it takes to tell, so it might be entirely subjective. To make sure, I would have to check it with someone else, wouldnt I?
0 1962-06-09, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(In the course of the preceding conversation, Satprem had thought that rather than a subjective change, a change in one's attitude towards things, there should be an objective change, a power capable of changing the very Substance of things: their property of hardness, for instance. Here Mother elucidates her previous statement that "if matter were changeable, it would have changed long ago," a statement that, at first glance, seemed to shatter all hope of transformation.)
There is nothing to change! Only the relations between things change.
--
And power is what makes the difference. The greater the power, you might say (these words are all very clumsy), the farther the experience spreads. How great the power is depends on its starting point. If its starting point is the Origin, the power is lets say universal (we wont consider more than one universe for the moment); it is universal. As this Power manifests from plane to plane, it becomes more concrete and limited; on each plane, the field of action becomes more limited. If your power is vital (or pranic, as its called here in India), the field of action is terrestrial, and sometimes limited to just a few individuals, sometimes its a power capable of acting on just one small being. But originally its the SAME power, acting on the SAME Substance I cant express it, words are impossible; but I sense very clearly what I mean.
I can affirm that this notion of subjective and objective still belongs to the world of illusion. The CONTENT of the experience is what may be either microscopic or universal, depending on the specific quality of the power being expressed, or its field of action. The limitation of power can be voluntary and deliberate; it can be a willed, and not an imposed limitation, which means that the Will-Force may come from the Origin but deliberately limit itself, limit its field of action. But it is the same power and the same Substance.
Ultimately there is but one power and one Substance. There are varying modalitiescountless modalitiesof power and Substance, but there is but ONE power and ONE Substance, as there is but ONE consciousness and ONE truth.
Yes, but when you say that what changes is only the relations between things, its still a matter of subjectivity (I use the word for lack of a better one). But when we come down to the brass tacks of transformationphysical immortality in the body, for instancedoesnt it involve more than a simple inner change of relations? Doesnt MATTER itself have to be transformed? So there has to be a power over matter. Not merely a change of relations no?
--
But this has to be very concretely grasped. Well, I say that the power must change this intra-atomic movement. Then, instead of disintegrating, your bodily Substance will obey the movement of Transformation, you follow? But its all the SAME thing! What must change are the relations among things.
And so it becomes EVIDENT that immortality can be achieved! Things get destroyed simply because of their own rigidity and even then, its only a semblance of destruction; the essential element stays the same, everywhere, in everything, in decay just as much as in life.
0 1962-06-20, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Pavitra was telling me the other day that, according to the latest scientific discoveries, matter in its present state can be immortal. Theres no reason that it couldnt change (for it changes all the time) enough to avoid decay. Nothing in matters composition stands in the way of its immortalityimmortality of form, I mean. If science simply follows its own course (and does not suddenly find itself confronted with something beyond its grasp), theres no reason it should not provide people who dont have a mystical or occult turn of mind with a way to use the present Substance in imperishable forms, without recourse to anything from other realms.
This is a great support for practical-minded people.
0 1962-07-25, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mother is referring to a letter of Sri Aurobindo's which Satprem had quoted in his manuscript: "... in the calm mind, it is the Substance of the mental being that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace. Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a Substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even intensely and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillnessoriginating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage."
Cent. Ed., XXIII. 637.
0 1962-08-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive had this great formative power ever since my earliest childhood, but I had channeled it and stopped it because I considered it useless. But it came back recently, along with the sure sign that it was coming from the very highest origin: This is it, this is how things will be. But thats for later, of course. To our external reason, those things seem totally unrealizable, but they will be realizable in perhaps a few hundred years, I dont knowits the future being prepared. And indeed, that vision has a tremendous power of creation and realization, and it is always felt physically (the rest is very still), its always physical. But it triggered a kind of very rapid movement of the physical consciousness (within the most material Substance), and caused a dislocation. And so2 the day before yesterday, that old formation suddenly returned and made me understand one aspect of the bodys nature, the way the body is CONSTRUCTED and the usefulness of that construction. So now things are all right. It has been one more step.
But when you receive those bad vibrations affecting your body,3 are they exhausted by your accepting them?
Its not that I receive bad vibrations, but that the physical Substance is not entirely (how can I explain?) in the proper movement or rhythm. For instance, between the vision of that old formation I spoke of and this (I cant call it a toothache, but anyway, something went wrong) there was no visible connection to speak of. The toothache wasnt caused by a particular vibration, its rather as if one thing or another provided the opportunity for absorbing a certain quantity or type of vibration (its more a quantity than a typeprobably both), a vibratory MODE, in order to put it in contact with THE vibratory mode the divine one.
But I understand your question. You want to know if this has an effect on all identical vibratory modes in the world. In principle, yes. But the effects may not be immediately visible; in the first place, our field of observation is nothingmaterially, what do we know? Only our immediate surroundings thats nothing. In 1920, for example, I had an experience of that type, which resulted in a symbolic but terrestrial action. It was a vision (I dont remember enough details to make it interesting) where each nation was represented by a symbolic entity, and there was a certain type of horrorof terror, rather. A certain will of terror was trying to manifest in that gathering of all nations. And I was witness to the whole thing. I remember it being a very conscious and rather long and detailed vision with a more intense reality than physical things have (it was in the subtle physical). And after it was over and I had done what needed to be done (I am not saying what because I dont remember all the details, and without accuracy it loses its value), when I came out of it I could say with TOTAL conviction: Terror has been overcome in the world. Of course, its not literally true, plenty of people still feel terror, but a certain type of terror was as if UNDERMINED at the foundations. What had already manifested kept on and is gradually being exhausted, but the terror that was trying to increase and dominate the life of nations was stopped cold.
0 1962-08-28, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have already explained this to you on several occasions: instead of SHIFTING from one to the other, its as if one were permeated by the other, like this (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand in between the fingers of her left hand), and you can almost feel both simultaneously. Its one of the results of whats going on these days. A very slight concentration, for example, is all it takes to feel both at the same time, which leads me to a near conviction that true change in the physical results from a kind of PENETRATION. The most material physical Substance no longer has that unreceptive sort of density, a density that resists penetration: it is becoming porous, and thus can be penetrated. Several times, in fact, Ive had the experience of one vibration quite naturally changing the quality of the other the subtle physical vibration was bringing about a sort of almost a transformation, or in any case a noticeable change in the purely physical vibration.
That seems to be the process, or at least one of the most important processes.
0 1962-09-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its a strange sensation, a bizarre perception of both the true functioning and the functioning distorted by the sense of being an individual body. Theyre not even you cant even say theyre superimposed, theyre almost simultaneous, and thats why it is so hard to explain. A number of things are malfunctioning in the body; I dont know if they can be called illnesses (maybe the doctors would call them illnesses), but in any case, theyre malfunctionings in the bodys organs: the heart, the stomach, the intestines, the lungs and so on. And at the same time theres (it cant be called a functioning) the true state. And thus certain disorders appear only when the consciousness as if the consciousness were pulled or pushed or poised in a certain way, and then, those malfunctionings INSTANTLY appearnot as a consequence: I mean the consciousness becomes aware of their existence. And if the consciousness stays in that position long enough, there are what we conventionally call consequences: the malfunctioning has its consequences (tiny things, such as physical discomforts, for instance). And if through (is it yogic discipline, is it the Lords intervention? Call it what you will) but if the consciousness regains its true position, the consequences cease IMMEDIATELY. Sometimes, though, its like this (Mother makes a gesture of an overlapping or interpenetration by interlacing the fingers of her two hands), in other words, this way, then that, this way, then that (Mother slips the fingers of her right hand back and forth through the fingers of her left to show the consciousness alternating between two states), this position, then that position, this one, then that one. This movement takes only a few seconds, so I can almost perceive the two functionings simultaneously. Thats what gave me the knowledge of the process, otherwise I wouldnt understand; I would simply think I am falling from one state into another. Thats not it, its just. The Substance, the vibrations, everything is probably following its normal course, you see, and all that is really changing is the way consciousness perceives things.
So pushing this knowledge to its limit that is, applying it generallylife (what we usually call life, the physical life of the body) and death are THE SAME THING, simultaneous its just that the consciousness moves back and forth, back and forth (same gesture). I dont know if I am making myself clear. But its fantastic.
0 1962-10-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Take the gods raiment, for example. Their raiment, which they change at will in the same way they change their forms, is made not of physical but of overmental Substance, and that Substance contains its own light. Its like that with everything, its all. Theres no sun casting light and shadows: the Substance is self-luminous.
And beyond, in the Supramental?
0 1962-10-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is quite remarkable that it was the body-consciousness that discoverednine years after his passingSri Aurobindo's abode (experience of July 24-25, 1959). The world where Mother went is thus a material world, not an "inner" world. The other Matter, the true Matter? We recall that in her very last Playground class, on November 28, 1958, Mother said: "Through each individual formation, physical Substance progresses, and one day it will be able to build a bridge between physical life as we know it and the supramental life that is to manifest."
***
0 1962-11-10, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what I was beginning to see towards the end. It took form gradually, gradually, and it was all there by the time you finished reading. At the beginning my attention was divided between what you were reading and what was going on; afterwards it was entirely focused on what was happening: your sheets of paper falling and landing weightlessly, like birds, and spreading over a floor that wasnt solid (it was there just to give the impression of a room, but you could see through it). And while you were reading, he was gathering them all up, with a long robe trailing behind him. This being was made of practically the same Substance as the sheets coming out of the piano (it was a kind of piano, it was playing music, but it was the principle of what you have written). So he gathered up everything, and when he had a stack this big, he said, I am going to take it and show it to them.
It was really lovely.
0 1962-11-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In order to be discernible, the cube was enveloped in something that looked like a kind of tulle, a tulle made of a pale gray Substance, which expressed the individual nonexistence, the perfect humility that completely abolishes the ego: because of that there wasnt the least possibility of egoif you ask me why, I cant say, but thats how it was. And I was seeing that tulle all the time something extremely delicate, scarcely perceptible, yet maintaining the cubes form. It was perfect humility (in the divine sense) and total absence of egothere wasnt even the memory or idea of it, nothing whatever: the abolition of the ego. And it served to receive that immobile immensity which manifested through an action of the Power. And then, the action of the Power. I was conscious (I was consciouswhere was I? I dont know; the cube represented my physical being: I had been TOLD it was my physical being), and I was watching it without being situated I myself had no precise place but could see and understand the whole thing. And I could discern all the action being done through the cube: this action for that thing, this for that, this for that the whole earth (gesture expressing forces radiating outward, each for a special purpose), things from the past and things FAR into the future.
And it was so imperative!
--
And the charm, the charm of the Substance enveloping the cube was inexpressible! Something I cant describe. There were no contrasts, no the whole thing was in total harmony. Of course, to say it resembled tulle is a crude comparisona very, very fine tulle, and gray. Do you know that little wild grass Ive named Humility?4
Yes, its silver, silver-gray.
0 1963-04-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
My experience, you see, is that his mental silence is rigidrigid, closed but the mental Substance, the brains physical Substance really rests, his silence can rid you of a headache, for instance.
Its a very, very material vibration, he has some mastery there.
0 1963-07-10, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only little by little, little by little do you learn the true functioning; because those things that are added on and spoil everything arent deliberate additions arising from a desire or impatience or overenthusiasmits none of that, its due to a habit. Its quite simply a habit. That is, the psychological element is purified and doesnt interfere: its just a habit. The Substance has the habit of doing things that way, and so it does them that way. So it must be taught not to stir, to keep quiet, so that when the Vibration comes, the something that always rushes forward doesnt do so.
Its very interesting.
0 1963-07-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A few days later, Mother added: "There is also something I left unsaid: an urgent need to cease all material activity in order to enable the body to receive fullyas fully as possible the divine Force that will replace what has been removed. There is something absolute about that need: to stay totally still, quiet, letting the Force descendpermeate the body, rather. All physical activity must be suspended in some way, and if the material organization, or the habit, tends to make it continue, a kind of material impossibility, an excessive fatigue or discomfort, comes to oblige the body to keep still. Because simply to remove or change what shouldn't be there won't do; it must also be replaced by what SHOULD be there. Otherwise, there would be a dwindling or gradual reduction of Substance resulting in dissolution. What has been sublimated or removed has to be replaced by something which is the true Vibration, the one that comes straight from the Supreme."
Mother did not eat anything this morning.
0 1963-08-03, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Physical Matter, physical Substance the very elementary consciousness thats in physical Substancehas been so ill-treated (since mans presence on earth, I suppose, because before man, there probably wasnt enough self-consciousness to be aware of being ill-treated; the Substance wasnt conscious enough, I suppose, to make a distinction between a normal peaceful state and unfavorable conditions; but anyway, that goes back quite long time), so ill-treated that it finds it very hard to believe things can be different. That consciousness has an aspirationan aspiration especially for a LUMINOUS peace, something that isnt the dark peace of Unconsciousness, which it doesnt like (I dont know if it ever liked it, but it no longer does). It aspires to a luminous peace; not to a consciousness full of various things, not that: simply to a peaceful consciousness, very peaceful, very quiet, very luminous thats what it wants. Yet at the same time, it has some difficulty believing that its possible. I am experiencing it: the concrete and absolutely tangible intervention of the supreme Power, supreme Light and supreme Goodnessit [the consciousness in physical Substance] has the experience of that, and every time it has a new sense of wonder, but in that sense of wonder I can see something like: Is it really possible?
It gives me the impression, you know, of a dog that has been beaten so much that it expects nothing but blows.
0 1963-08-21, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
These days, I dont know whether it has come to the last battle, but it has descended very deep into the cells worst-lit realm: what still belongs most to the world of Unconsciousness and Inertia and is most foreign to the divine Presence. It is, so to say, the primal Substance that was first used by Life, and it has a sort of inability to feel, to experience a reason for that life.
In fact, its something I had never experienced [that absence of meaning]; even in my earliest childhood, when there was no development, I always had a perception (not a mentalized but a vibrant perception) of a Power behind all things which is the Raison dtre of all thingsa Power, a Force, a kind of warmth.
0 1963-10-05, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I didnt have any sense of dangernot at all. Only that slight feeling of being upset: They ought to inform people before doing things of that sort! And they were the supreme heads of the organization (there was nothing religious or spiritual about it: it was very concrete, in Matter). But that water I kept admiring it, thinking, Oh, they have control over that water! It was like liquid diamond. It was a marvel, as if everything it touched were purified. And that being who came out of the huge swimming pool (it wasnt a human being: it looked like a vital being who was neither a man nor a woman) came out in a kind of bathing suit, wrapped himself up and disappeared. But otherwise ALL the doors were closed, there wasnt a soulonly me on my square, with the square around me and my back against a closed door, watching the whole scene from a great height. And everything was filling up with that Substanceit looked like water, but it wasnt water.
The impression lingered, as if there were something I had to understand.
0 1963-10-16, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here is what happened: I do my usual bath of the Lord and it is arranged that, after a time, Champaklal opens the doorwhich signals to me the end of the visit. So I looked at X, just to see (I had looked at him several times before, but there was nothing particular), I looked at him and saw in front of him a sort of mass of Substance, not material but responsive to a mental formation, which means that mental thought and will can make this Substance take different shapes I know it (Mother makes a gesture of fingering the Substance), its very like the sort of Substance mediums use for their apparitions (less material, more mental, but anyway the same kind). There was a sort of mass in front of him, which was hiding him; it wasnt luminous, not black either, but dark enough. So I looked at it, STARED at it to see what it was, and as I was staring, I saw that there was a will or an effort to give that mass of Substance a shape. It was exactly in front of Xs head and shoulders. And there was a will to give it a shape (gesture of molding). As I stared very carefully, it took the shape of Sri Aurobindos head as it appears in newspapers and magazines (what I call the popular Sri Aurobindo, as he is shown in books), the Substance took that form. Immediately I thought (ironic tone), Oh, its the popular form, that doesnt resemble him! And instantly, the Substance rearranged itself and took the form of Cartier-Bressons Sri Aurobindo1 (the three-quarter face photo, where he is seated in his armchair). That was better! (Mother holds back a chuckle) It wasnt yet quite good, but anyway it was better (although, mind you, it had neither light nor life: it was mattera subtle matter, of courseput into shape by a mental will). So I began to wonder: Whatever is this?! Does he want me to believe that Sri Aurobindo is in him, or what? Because Xs head and shoulders had completely disappeared, there was nothing left but that. And I thought (not a strong thought, just a reflection): No, its not very good, really not very lifelike! (Mother laughs) Then there was a last attempt and it became very like the photo that was taken when he left his body (that photo which we stood on end and called Meditation), it was very like the photo, (in an ironic tone) a very good likeness. And it stayed. So I thought, Oh yes! This is the photo.
Then I concentrated just a little and thought, Lets see, now. Whom is he trying to delude? And instantly, everything vanished. And I saw X, his head.
--
[Satprem cannot believe what Mother has just told him:] It was a will coming from him? It wasnt someone else who used that Substance?
No. It was either he or his guruhis guru interferes in many things. And I saw his guru several times by his side I wasnt positively sure it was X, but if it wasnt X, it was his guru, it can only be one or the other. And it was done DELIBERATELY, to make me think that Sri Aurobindo was there, in X, using X as a means of expression.
--
He clearly knows how to put mental Substance into shape but this handling of mental matter to give it a shape, everybody does it unknowingly, automatically; you only have to think a little strongly for it to be done. Only, people dont see it because they dont have the mental vision. And here, it was so funny [Xs mental formation], because it responded so well (thats what made me think it was he who was doing it, not someone else), it responded so well to my immediate thought (and I didnt think strongly). I looked at the thing, and spontaneously, within myself, I thought, Oh, no! Almost as if Sri Aurobindo were saying, Oh, no! Thats my popular portrait, its no good! Voil.4
***
0 1963-11-23, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No. You know, what lends force to the opposition is superstitious ignorancesuperstitious in the sense of a sort of faith or at least of belief in Destiny, in Fate. Its ingrained, as if woven into the human Substance. They have the same superstition, the same superstitious belief in what is favorable to them as in what is unfavorable; in the divine Power as in the adverse powerits the SAME attitude. And thats why the divine Power doesnt have its full force, and also precisely why the adverse force has so much power over them, because its absolutely a movement of Falsehood, of Ignoranceof total Ignorance.
Recently, I was following the thing down to the smallest detail, in everybodys mentality. Even in those who have read Sri Aurobindo, who have studied Sri Aurobindo, who have understood, who have come into contact with that region of light, its still there its still there. Its very yes, its very tightly woven into the most outward and material part of the consciousness. Its a kind of submissiveness, which may be quite rebellious, but which gives a sense, as you said, of something hanging over your head and shoulders: a sort of Fate, of Destiny.
0 1963-12-07 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Last night, for instance, early in the morning, there were several layers of cells,1 as it were, and each cell was I cant say the property, but the possession of someone: what was under his direct control and reflected his mood, as it is customarily called, his way of being. And there were many levels: you could go upstairs and downstairs. And the impression I had of myself was that I was much, much taller and that I towered above it all; and I had a different texture, as if I were made of a different Substance, not quite the same as the others. It was as if all that were inside me without being inside me (I cant explain): I was looming over everything and at the same time acting inside. And then, according to the action, people were going upstairs or downstairs, going and coming; but everyone had his own little boxthey were BEGINNING to have it, it was beginning to get organized. Each cell was more or less precise: some were very precise, others more blurred, as if on the way to becoming precise. And the whole experience, last night, had a kind of precision about it. I was like something very big, outside, and I was laughing, talking to everyone, but they werent aware of the action [of Mother]. You see, they seemed to me this tall (gesture: four inches), tiny. But quite alive: they were going and coming, moving about. And I was talking to them, but they didnt know where the voice was coming from. So I laughed, I found it funny, I said to some, There! You see, thats your idea of things. And it was oh, if I compare it to last year, there is a tremendous difference of CONSCIOUSNESS, from the point of view of consciousness. Before, all the movements were reflexes, instincts, as if people were impelled by a force which they were totally unconscious of and considered to be their character, most of the time, or else Destiny (either their character or Fate, Destiny). They were all like puppets on strings. Now, they are conscious beings theyre BEGINNING, theyre beginning to be conscious.
The proportion has changed.
0 1964-02-26, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This week, you know, I should have remained quiet (meaning that I would have liked to), because the result of that intensity of aspiration [in the body] is to give me a crystal clear and almost constant perception of the extent to which the material Substance is made of Falsehood and Ignoranceas soon as the consciousness is clear, at rest, peaceful, in a luminous vision, falsities seem to come up from all sides. It isnt an active perception, in the sense that I dont try to know: these are things that PRESENT themselves to the consciousness. And then you realize what it takes to clarify all that, to transform all thatwhat tremendous power of Truth-Force! And you notice that the intensity of the aspirationwhich hastens the transformation and brings the realization nearermay well (Mother touches her eye) yes, heres the result.
And I notice that, all around, those nearer to the center of descent are very shaken upvery. I see very few bodies around me capable of bearing it. But then, if thats how it is, necessarily the descent is so filtered and diminished that how much will get through?
0 1964-03-07, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I noticed (Ive known it for some time, but it was quite concrete this time) that in my rest, as soon as I am at rest, the body is completely identified with the material Substance of the earth, that is to say, the experience of the material Substance of the earth becomes its ownwhich may be expressed by all sorts of things (it depends on the day, on the occasion). I had known for a long time that it was no longer the individual consciousness; it isnt the collective consciousness of mankind: its a terrestrial consciousness, meaning it also contains the material Substance of the earth, including the unconscious Substance. Because I have prayed a lot, concentrated a lot, aspired a lot for the transformation of the Inconscient (since it is the essential condition for the thing to happen)because of that there has been a kind of identification.
Last night it became a certainty.
--
The penetration and permeation into material Substance of the Ananda of the power of progress in Life.
It wasnt a permeation into the Mind: it was a permeation into Lifeinto Life, into the material, earthly Substance, which had become alive. Even plants participated in last nights experience: it isnt something that was the privilege of the mental being, its the whole vital Substance (vitalized material Substance) of the earth that received this ananda of the power of progressit was triumphant. Triumphant.
And when I came back (it took me perhaps five or six minutes to come back), it was with a sort of quiet certainty that the return was a necessity, and that something else would occur thanks to which it wont be necessary to leave one state for the other (thats the trouble, we still have to leave one state for the other). It hasnt left, but its in the backgroundit should be in the front.
0 1964-07-18, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Theres a lot of Substance.
And this is his wife, a Russian.
--
More Substance here [in the brother]. A lot of Substance, a lot.
Hes fine, your brother.
0 1964-10-24a, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, what should be asked, since were always asking for something, is for the Substance to become conscious enough to receive the Force and itself work its own miracle, get cured, or this or that, anyway do the work.
Yes, it mustnt be a favor. Give me the Force to be what I should be, that, yes.
0 1964-10-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its in this problem that I have been living these past few days. And mark you, it isnt at all the speculation of a higher being or a being who belongs to other worlds: its the Substance of physical life that wants to know its own inner, deeper law.
(silence)
0 1964-11-28, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, I dont know, but there is a long, long way to goa long wayto change this into a Substance plastic enough, receptive enough, strong enough to express the supreme Power. There is a lot to be done, a whole lot.
(silence)
--
It begins with something he calls aspirationoh, its beautiful! I have rarely heard something with so pure and so beautiful an inspiration. All of a sudden, a sound comes, which is exactly the sound you hear up above. And it isnt too mixed (the fault I find with all classical music is all the accompaniment which is there to give more Substance, but which spoils the purity of the inspiration: to me, its padding), well, with Sunil, the padding isnt there. He doesnt claim to be making music, of course, and the padding isnt there, so its truly beautiful.
I have decided not to play this year for January 1st. Even last year, I very much hesitated to play because I was absolutely conscious of the inadequacy the poorness and inadequacyof the physical instrument; but there was a sort of reasonable wisdom which knew how a refusal to play would be interpreted [by the disciples], so I playedwithout satisfaction, and it wasnt worth much. But the music I heard yesterday was so much THAT, SO much what I would like to play, that I said to myself, Well, now it would be unreasonable to want to keep in a personal manifestation something that has a much better means of expression [Sunil]. So I have decided to say No for January 1st. But I will see if Sunil couldnt prepare something on the theme of next years message, something that would be recorded and played for everyone, in an anonymous wayno need to say, Its by this or that person, its music, thats all.
0 1965-01-06, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its odd, all that music of the past, European music, which I knew very well and admired, it seems to me almost void of Substance, while here, there is a contact right up above: you plunge into it instantly.
Yes, thats right. When I heard his music for the first time, something suddenly opened up and I was right in the middle of the place I know, from which true Harmony comessuddenly.
0 1965-03-20, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You know, problems of illness, problems of possession (vital and mental possession), problems of egos that refuse to yield (and this results in circumstances which, humanly, are described in the ordinary way: such and such a thing has happened to so-and-so but thats not how it comes into the consciousness), well, if you look at things in a sufficiently general way, those problems REMAIN problems. There is indeed something, but a something that is still elusive (elusive in its essence): it has to do with feeling, with sensation, with perception, also with aspirationit has to do with all that, and it is what we habitually call divine Love (that is, essential Love, that which is expressed by Love and seems to be beyond the Manifestation and Nonmanifestation, which, naturally, becomes Love in the Manifestation). And That would be the ALL-POWERFUL expression. In other words, That is what would have the power to transform into divine consciousness and Substance all the chaos we now call world.
There was the experience of That [the experience of the great pulsations], but it was an experience (how can I put it?) of a drop that would be an infinite, or of a second that would be an eternity. While the experience is there, there is absolute certitude; but outwardly, everything starts up again as it was one minute beforeThat (gesture of pulsation for a second), puff! everything is changed; then everything starts up again, with perhaps a slight change thats perceptible only to a consciousness (perceptible to the consciousness, but not concretely perceptible), and with, generally, violent reactions in the Disorder: something that revolts.
0 1965-04-21, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This, in particular: The difference between the present human body and the supramental creation is so considerable, the Substance must be so different
Of course.
--
What I meant by an improved physical body is that sort of mastery over the body thats being gained nowadays through physical training. I have seen lately magazines showing how it had started: the results in the beginning and todays results; and from the standpoint of the harmony of forms (I am not talking about excesses there are excesses everywhere I am talking about what can be done in the best possible conditions), from the standpoint of the harmony of forms, of strength and a certain sense of beauty, of the development of certain capacities of endurance and skill, of precision in the execution combined with strength, its quite remarkable if you think of how recent physical training is. And its spreading very quickly nowadays, which means that the proportion of the human population that is interested in it and practices it is snowballing. So when I saw all those photos (for me, its especially through pictures that I see), it occurred to me that through those qualities, the cells, the cellular aggregates acquire a plasticity, a receptivity, a force that make the Substance more supple for the permeation of the supramental forces.
Lets take the sense of form, for example (I am giving one example among many others). Evolution is openly moving towards diminishing the difference between the female and the male forms: the ideal thats being created makes female forms more masculine and gives male forms a certain grace and suppleness, with the result that they increasingly resemble what I had seen all the way up, beyond the worlds of the creation, on the threshold, if I can call it that, of the world of form. At the beginning of the century, I had seen, before even knowing of Sri Aurobindos existence and without having ever heard the word supramental or the idea of it or anything, I had seen there, all the way up, on the threshold of the Formless, at the extreme limit, an ideal form that resembled the human form, which was an idealized human form: neither man nor woman. A luminous form, a form of golden light. When I read what Sri Aurobindo wrote, I said, But what I saw was the supramental form! Without having the faintest idea that it might exist. Well, the ideal of form we are now moving towards resembles what I saw. Thats why I said: since there is an evolutionary concentration on this point, on the physical, bodily form, it must mean that Nature is preparing something for that Descent and that embodimentit seems logical to me. Thats what I meant by an improved physical form.
0 1965-05-29, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Even with scientific development taken to its utmost, to the point where one really feels there is almost no difference left, when, for instance, they reach the oneness of Substance and there seems to remain just an almost insensible or imperceptible passage from one condition to the other [the material to the spiritual], well, no, its not like that! In order to perceive that sort of identity, you must carry already in yourself the experience of the OTHER THING; otherwise you cannot.
And precisely because they have acquired the capacity to explain, they explain for themselves the inner phenomena, so that they remain in their negation of inner phenomena: they say they are like extensions of what they have studied.
0 1965-06-02, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sometimes (often), the same thing happens to me with speech. I feel as if I am speaking from very far away or from behind a woolly Substance that blunts the precision of vibrations. In its extreme form, its because of this that I sometimes dont hearnothing: when some people speak to me, I hear absolutely nothing. With others, I hear the drone of a sound devoid of meaning. And with other people, I hear EVERYTHING they say. But its a different way of hearing: what I hear is the vibration of their thought and thats what makes it very clear.
I have the same thing with hearing, the same thing with sight.
0 1965-06-18 - supramental ship, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The second time, he was stronger than the first; and the third time, he was magnificent: a tall, superb being with that vibrant, radiant Substance. And what a sprint! What leaps! It was fantastic. The last time, it was fantastic, as if he skimmed over the ground.
We speak very, very rarely. Sometimes he tells me something, but its with a special import and a special aimwe understand each other without words. There he didnt say anything, but I understood.
--
Ah, I had another experience about that a few days ago. You know that they are speaking of a Substance denser than physical Substance. What do they call it? (Mother cannot remember) Thon had already spoken about it, but I thought it was his imagination. But I have been told that it has been scientifically discovered and that the amount of that denser matter seems to be INCREASING.
What do they call it? There is a name. I dont remember now, but some time ago, a month or two, someone who came from France told me that in scientific circles they now seem to be saying that matter denser than physical matter appears to be increasing in amount on earththis would be extremely interesting.3
As for Thon, he used to say that the glorified body would be made of a matter denser than physical matter, but with qualities that physical matter doesnt have. And this Substance does have qualities, they say, that Matter doesnt have, like for instance elasticity. Well, a few nights ago (I dont remember when), I was in a place in which a sort of pale gray Substance had been collected, which looked like diluted clay (a paste, that is). And elastic, (laughing) glutinous! It was like diluted cement, but very pale, a really lovely pearl gray, and sticky: it could be stretched like chewing gum! And then there were a number of people who had gathered there to ba the in that Substance. Some were crawling in it with delight! They were smearing themselves all over with it, and it was sticky! And I myself Once you were there, you were inevitably plunged in it to some extent: it seemed to be there even in the air; you couldnt avoid it. But there was a lady who took great care of me so it wouldnt be too inconvenient: I remember that I had a sort of luminous dress, white and red (white with red decorations) in which I wrapped myself so that Substance wouldnt stick to me. But I watched the whole thing, and I saw, for instance, our Purani4 wallowing in it, sliding with delight, dripping with that mud all over! And everybody was in that mud. Only, it was a mud of a very lovely pearl gray, but was it sticky! And in the morning when I woke up, I said to myself it must be the new Substance in preparationits not yet fully ready but its in preparation.
There were some highly amusing details: it was arranged like the establishments, you know, in those big stylish spas. It was like that. And people came there to take baths in that Substance.
What do they call it? Pavitra would know the name. I used to know it: Thon had given it the name they give it today. But I dont remember. A matter denser than physical Matter. But elastic.
--
Of the force that will transform that into an acceptable Substance.
(silence)
The consciousness that will learn to use that Substance (just as there was a consciousness that learned to use the bodys Substance) will probably know how to turn it into something that can be used. Because we have grown accustomed to it, but obviously its a sort of superchemistry that made this corporeal Substance. We find it perfectly natural, but it hasnt always been this waythere is a long way from the jellyfish, for example, to this body.
I had the impression of a Substance that has to undergo a work of adaptation, transformation, utilization, and that would serve as an outer form for the supramental being.
My impression is that Sri Aurobindo already has his subtle supramental form. For instance, when he has to move, he doesnt give the impression of being subject to the same laws as we are; but as its subtle, it doesnt appear surprising. And also a sort of ubiquity: he is in several places at the same time. And a plasticity, an adaptability according to the work he wants to do, the people he meets. In those activities I am quite aware that I see him in a certain way, but I think others dont see him the same waythey see him differently, probably wearing clothes. When he ran in the forest, we were all alone, and it was a large forest without anyone there; then a few minutes later, we were somewhere else and there were people, other people to whom he spoke, and I didnt at all feel that the others were seeing him without clothes: they were certainly seeing him wearing clothes.
--
Satprem meant that he found it hard to see how the new Substance, nevertheless very different from Matter, could be prepared through gymnastics for the physical body.
Mother is perhaps referring to "ionized matter"?
0 1965-08-31, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That isnt the physical mind. The physical mind, its a long time since It is the material mindnot even the material mind: the mind OF MATTER.1 It is the mental Substance that belongs to Matter itself, to the cells. Thats what was formerly called the spirit of the form, when it was said that mummies kept their bodies intact as long as the spirit of the form persisted.2 Thats the mind I mean, that completely material mind. The other one, the physical mind, has been organized for a long time.
So what is the difference between this material mind and the physical mind? How would you define the physical mind in contrast with this material mind?
--
It is the most unconscious part of the physical mind, and thats what connects the physical mind with this material Substance. But thats already an organized mind, you understand? It is the most material part, the one that borders on the mind (what can we call this mind?), we cant even call it corporeal mind: it is the mind of the cells, a cellular mind.
This cellular mind exists in animals, and there is even a faint beginning (but very faint, like a promise) in plants: they respond to a mental action. They respond. As soon as Life manifests, there is already the beginning, like a promise of mind, of mental movement. And in animals, its very clear. Whereas that physical mind really began to exist only in man. Thats what a very small child already has: it already has a physical mind; so that no two very small children are alike, with identical reactions: there is already a difference. And it is especially what is given you with the special FORM of your body, by atavism, and then fully developed by education.
--
It is the mind that was like an uncoordinated Substance, with a constant, unorganized activity (Mother gestures to show a constant tremor). This is the mind which is being organized. Thats what is important, because Sri Aurobindo said it was unorganizable and the only thing to do was to reject it from existence. And I was under that impression, too. But when the transforming action on the cells is constant, this material mind begins to become organized, thats the wonderful thing! It begins to become organized. And then, as it becomes organized, it learns to FALL SILENTthats the beautiful thing! It learns to keep calm, silent, and to let the supreme Force act without interfering.
The most difficult part is in the nerves, because they are so habituated to that ordinary conscious will that when it stops and you want the direct Action from the highest height, they seem to become mad. Yesterday morning I had that experience, which lasted for more than an hour, and it was difficult; but it taught me many thingsmany things. And all this is what we may call the transfer of power: it is the old power that withdraws. But then, until the body adapts to the new power, there is a period which is, well, critical. As all the cells are in a state of conscious aspiration, its going relatively fast, but still the minutes are long.
0 1965-09-11, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I dont know if I told you that the day before it was known that it had really become a sort of war, the night before that, I had an experience that has occurred to me only two or three times in my life, always in similar circumstances. This time, I wasnt expecting anything, and in the night, there was in the TERRESTRIAL atmosphere, with a concentration on India, a sort of something I might call a pressure of the Supreme. Its as if the Supremes Consciousness were exerting a pressure, and it produces a certain type of stillness with a solidity and a consistency not found anywhere else. You know, its even more solid and substantial than the most inert inertia. And its the pressure of the Supreme Power. Its almost intolerable or unbearable for Matter, for material Substance. And it goes like this (gesture of massive descent), absolutely impossible to budge, and at the same time you feel its the Supreme Power. Well, it lasted for hours that night, and I was extremely attentive in order to know what it meant. And the next day, I was told things had all of a sudden broken out like a war: all that friction that had been there for years had suddenly taken that form.
So it is clearly a very exceptional intervention that has brought this about.
0 1965-09-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And you clearly feel in this struggle (which lasted the whole night and the whole morningyesterday, I wasnt in too brilliant a state), you clearly see, its visible that its not a question of a forceful will or its not that: the Substance must be ready. If the Substance isnt ready, a forceful, powerful action visibly causes a dissolution. And then all that has been built has to be rebuilt. This idiotic death, you see, reduces it all to nothing, and the whole work is wastedwhat goes out is what came in with a little more experience, thats all. Thats nothing.
(silence)
0 1965-10-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Oh, theres a whole work going on at night. Oh! The whole petty subconscious working of habits, with all the gradations of the importance it assumes in the general consciousness, and, very interestingly, according to the proportion of the importance, it gives the scale. There was the whole scale, from the little manias people have, which of course are very superficial and mere habits, to the known maniacs or half-mad the whole scale, along with the whole working. And then, the perception that its just a question of dosage: we all belong to the same Substance! It was seen so concretely that it was quite interesting. And in conclusion, one saw how to put that under the direct Influence of the supreme Force and Consciousness so as to break the inescapable chain of habits. It was very interesting.
Those are all the things that are considered unimportant, and its all that, the whole mass of all that, which prevents the physical transformation.
0 1965-10-30, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Something amusing has happened. You know that there is a new comet?1 This morning around four, I saw the comet, and suddenly I found myself in a state above the earth, and I saw a being who seemed to be associated with this comet. He had red hair (but not an aggressive red), a white body, but not pure white: a golden white, as if he were naked, but he didnt give an impression of being naked, or of wearing any clothes either (I have noticed this several times already), sexlessnei ther man nor woman. And it was a young being, charming, full of a sort of joy, like the joy that came a little in the music just now, and he was spreading in the earth atmosphere a sort of Substance that was heavier than Matternot heavier, but denser and jelly-like. It was as though he had taken advantage of the comet passing near the earth to spread that Substance. And at the same time, I was told it was to help for the transformation of the earth. And he showed me how to make that Substance circulate in the atmosphere.
It was charming: a young being, full of joy, as if dancing, and spreading that Substance everywhere.
It lasted a long time. For several hours I remained in it.
0 1965-11-03, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And the effect is going on. That Substance I told you about is still acting in the earth atmosphere. Dont you feel it? You dont have the sensation of being more comfortable, no?
***
0 1965-12-10, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its all right, he is a fine boy, he has Substance, hell be all right. If he did actually leave his body, well give him another one. There.
Yes, he was a fine boy.
0 1965-12-28, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Take Purani,1 for instance: I used to see him almost every night, and then some fifteen days ago (ten to fifteen days ago, I think2), before he left his body here, like that, I saw him in a place Its a place which is entirely made of a sort of pinkish gray clayits sticky, gluey, and rather liquid (Mother makes the gesture of stretching chewing gum). There were lots of people. It was a place where lots of people were going to prepare themselves there for the supramental life but not in their present bodies, which means they were preparing something in order to be ready for the supramental life in a future existence. And I had been taken there; there was a good number of people who had taken me there so I would see (so I would have an action of control there). But as for me, great care was taken to prevent me from being touched by that Substance (it was important that I shouldnt be touched), so they wrapped me in golden veils and all sorts of things, and I was walking along. And I saw him I was walking on a sort of verandah (but it all had a very peculiar character, all was made of a bizarre matter), and there was a sort of large courtyard which was entirely made of that semiliquid, semigluey matter which looked like very diluted but very sticky clay (same elastic gesture like chewing gum). And suddenly I saw Purani rushing into it. From the far end he comes to me covered all over in that and sweeping through it with such strokes! He had it all over his face, all over everywhere! You could see nothing but that. I told him (laughing), Oh, you like it! He told me, Oh, its very nice, very nice!
Since that evening I havent seen him again. And then, some twelve or fifteen days later, I dont remember, he left his body.
0 1966-03-19, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You must probably lack what Thon called the Substance of certain planes in the consciousness of your being, so when you wake up you dont remember, it doesnt come through. But maybe you are left with an impression, no?
Yes Its very insubstantial.
0 1966-05-14, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The other day, for example, the day before yesterday (not last night, but the night before), I was with Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Aurobindo had taken on the appearance of the photograph of him in which he is young, with long hair: that full-face photograph in which he has a fair complexion and very dark hair. He was like tha the WAS like that, it wasnt a picture: he WAS like that. And we were looking at certain things, talking about certain things (we dont talk much, but anyway), looking at some thingswhen I suddenly see his face all tormented like this (gesture as if the face had shrunk). He usually always has a very calm and very smiling, quiet face; but all of a sudden, it was quite tormented, and then he abruptly sat back on that sort of seat, a sort of couch. So I looked at him, and he told me, Oh, how they are distorting things. Look at this fellow, how they are distorting things. Almost immediately afterwards, it was time and I woke up, I got up. And I said to myself, I thought one wasnt tormented in that state! Then I heard today that A., who was here and left to be a political activist there [in Bengal], is speaking in Sri Aurobindos name, mon petit! And he issues political declarations. Thats what I had seen. It wasnt that Sri Aurobindo was annoyed: the image of his face was the image of what the others were doing!1 (Mother laughs) How can I explain it? Its very strange, you know. It was the image of what those people did with his teaching, it wasnt the expression of his own feeling. You know, what goes on here, what we describe, is so blunt, devoid of fineness, crude, like a rough-hewn statue: its rough, crude, exaggerated; and its distorted by the sense of separation given by the ego. While there, I dont know how to explain, there, all is one, there is one single thing taking on all sorts of forms like that (Mother turns her two hands together, one wrapped inside the other) in order to express something, but not with one center that feels and another center that sees and another center that understands; its not like that, its (same gesture), its all ONE Substance with inexpressible suppleness, which adapts itself to all the movements of all that happens, which expresses all that happens, without separation. So then, it leaves me in a state that goes on for hours in the morning, in which I am in this world [here], yet without being in it. Because I dont feel things the way the world feels them. Its a very strange phenomenon.
Yesterday, I remained like that the whole morning, in a very strange state, and the state seemed to want me to remember, to have the memory, and it left me only when I said (I said, I dont know, I didnt say it to anyone, I just said) that I would tell you about it today. Then I was allowed to resume contact with everyday life.
0 1966-06-29, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its the Substance of the world, what constitutes the world.
Yes. If we say, Without consciousness there is no world, its much truer, but it doesnt explain. That was my first answer: without consciousness, no world, no existence.
--
Its not true, the Rishis always spoke of Fire, Agni, which is the primordial Substance.
But is fire consciousness?
0 1966-07-09, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But Sri Aurobindo certainly meant that this Power or this Force is what does everythingeverything. When you see It or are one with It, at the same time you know, and you know that That is the only thing that really acts and creates; the rest is the result of the field or the world or the matter or the Substance in which It actsits the result of resistance, but its not the Action. And to unite with That means that you unite with the Action; to unite with whats below means that you unite with the resistance.
So then, because they fidget, stir, bustle, want to do this and that, think, make plans they imagine theyre doing something (!)they just resist.
0 1966-08-24, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The beginning and end of the following conversation could not be tape-recorded because of mechanical trouble, and only the middle remains. The conversation was about an experience of Mothers; she described the place in which Satprem usually rests at night and from which he draws the atmosphere of his present book: a place very harmonious in color and Substance. Then Sujata tells Mother a dream she had a few days ago.)
When you went to this place of harmony, did you play music? Because I saw you play music for him.
0 1966-09-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Someone writes to me, You told me this, and its one of my scenes! One of the scenes I livednot lived, lived and created at the same time! I dont know how to explain it. Its like a work of (Mother seems to feet an invisible Substance between her fingers, as if fashioning it).
And its not me, of course! Here (Mother touches her forehead), Lord, thank God, I hope it will go on forever: quiet, calm, so calm, so tranquil, so peaceful. But it comes from every side! (gesture of innumerable communications pouring into this silence)
--
You see, it sounds like a childs prattling, because The expression of these present experiences isnt an intellectual expression at all, and to those who dont understand that its the experience of the physical Substance, of the cells, the most material form, it quite simply sounds like a childs prattling. Its an experience as a child might have, without the complications and explanations supplied by intellectual development.
And this simplicity, this lack of complication and sophistication, is what gives these things great value, in the sense that it gives them perfect sincerity and simplicity. In anything expressed mentally, vitally, intellectually, there is always MORE in the form, in the word, in the expression, MORE than in the experienceit gets enlarged and rounded out (!) What is said is more than what is meant to be said. While here, its the perfectly pure experience, which feels the words as a sort of shrinking, a diminishing, and at the same time as bringing in a complication that doesnt exist in the experience the experience is very simple, very simple: it is truly pure. And anything one says is like adding something that lessens its purity and simplicity.
0 1966-09-30, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Although St. Paul had remarkable mystic experiences and, certainly, much profound spiritual knowledge (profound rather than wide, I think)I would not swear to it that he is referring1 to the supramentalised body (physical body). Perhaps to the supramental body or to some other luminous body in its own space and Substance, which he found sometimes as if enveloping him and abolishing this body of death which he felt the material envelope to be. This verse like many others is capable of several interpretations and might refer to a quite supraphysical experience. The idea of a transformation of the body occurs in different traditions, but I have never been quite sure that it meant the change in this very matter. There was a yogi some time ago in this region who taught it, but he hoped when the change was complete, to disappear in light. The Vaishnavas speak of a divine body which will replace this one when there is the complete siddhi. But, again, is this a divine physical or supraphysical body? At the same time there is no obstacle in the way of supposing that all these ideas, intuitions, experiences point to, if they do not exactly denote, the physical transformation.2
Sri Aurobindo
--
Oddly, these last few days again, this has been the subject of my meditations (not willed ones: they are imposed from above). Because in all the transition from plant to animal and from animal to man (especially from animal to man), the differences of form are, ultimately, minor: the true transformation is the intervention of another agent of consciousness. All the differences between the life of the animal and the life of man stem from the intervention of the Mind; but the Substance is essentially the same and it obeys the same laws of formation and construction. There isnt much difference, for instance, between the calf being formed in a cows womb and the child being formed in its mothers womb. There is one difference: that of the Minds intervention. But if we envisage a PHYSICAL being, that is, as visible as the physical now is and with the same density, for instance a body that wouldnt need blood circulation and bones (especially these two things: the skeleton and blood circulation) its very hard to imagine. And as long as it is like this, with this blood circulation, this functioning of the heart, we could imaginewe can imagine the renewal of strength, of energy through a power of the Spirit, through other means than food. Its conceivable. But the rigidity, the solidity of the body, how is it possible without a skeleton? So it would be an infinitely greater transformation than that from animal to man; it would be a transition from man to a being that would no longer be built in the same way, that would no longer function in the same way, that would be like a densification or concretization of something. Up till now, it doesnt correspond to anything we have seen physically, unless the scientists have found something I am not aware of.
We may conceive of a new light or force giving the cells a sort of spontaneous life, a spontaneous strength.
--
No. Do you think it would have to be a nonphysical Substance?
I dont know if its nonphysical, but its a physical I am unaware of! And its not Substance as we now know it, and especially not the construction we now know.
I dont know, but if it has to be a PHYSICAL body (as Sri Aurobindo said it would), it seemed to me (but that may be a daydream) that it could be like a lotus bud, for example: our present body is like a small, closed, hard lotus bud, and it blossoms out, it becomes a flower.
--
I quite understand a progressive change and that this Substance could be made into something capable of renewing itself eternally from within outward. That would be immortality. But it seems to me that between what is now, what we are, and that other mode of life, a lot of stages might be necessary. You see, if for instance you ask these cells, with all the consciousness and experience they now have, Is there something you cannot do?, in their sincerity they will answer, No, what the Lord wills, I can do. Thats their state of consciousness. But the appearance is otherwise. The personal experience is like this: all that I do with the Lords Presence, I do effortlessly, without difficulty, without fatigue, without wear and tear, like that (Mother spreads out her arms in a great, harmonious Rhythm), but its still open to the whole influence from outside and the body is forced to do things that arent directly the expression of the supreme Impulsion, hence the fatigue, the friction. So a supramental body suspended in a world thats not the earth is not the thing!
No.
--
Multiply a thousand times what very small children feel. (I am talking about those who are exclusively physical, human beings, not those who are reincarnations.) When they are purely physical beings, they cant approach me, mon petit! They start crying and trembling! Yet I love them and welcome them with all my tenderness and as much calm as possible they start trembling and then get frightened, its too strong. With those who carry something else in themselves, the reincarnations, its different: they open out, they are happy; but when theres nothing but this, that is, the external Substance Ive seen adults come (I did the experiment: I charge the atmosphere, the Lord is present), well, Ive seen forty-year-old men enter that and brrt! literally run away, disregarding all social courtesy, and after having ASKED to come, you understand! Anyway everything was there to allow them to behave decentlyimpossible, they couldnt.
But even in my case, having the experience of you, knowing you well, at times its fearsome.
--
No, its the Substance that fears.
There.
0 1966-12-17, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So I told him Because I looked, I immediately looked at it from THAT angle. For my part, I see things very differently, never in that way. I am always surprised at the way people see things. To me, its completely different, its the Lords Vibration crystallizing. Thats all. And always, alwaysat all times. So theres no why, no howits very simple, elementary in its simplicity. But I couldnt tell him that, he wouldnt have understood. So I looked at it from his standpoint, and all of a sudden I saw; I said, Yes indeed, how did this come about? (Mother laughs) So I answered him (I dont remember the words I used, but in Substance): The protection acts on the entire group when it works in a coordinated and disciplined way, but if individuals in it have an action INDEPENDENT of the group, then they fall back into their own determinism, which means that the protection acts according to their personal faith, not at all as something collective: according to their personal state and faith, the action of the protection is greater or lesser.
I saw it was clearly that. I saw how it had happened (because his question made me look at it, so I saw). There is an interesting point, its that the mental initiative in swimming across that pond was P.s and anothersso, humanly speaking, they are the ones who are responsible (but thats not true, its not like that!). But anyway, they were outside the group, it was an action that had nothing to do with the group, and they did it because they were to rejoin the group at a precise time and they were late. So it was clearly an individual outgrowth. Walking round the pond would have taken three hours while there were hardly two hours left before nightfall, and they were in a jungle, without any light or anything. That was another impossibility. So with his reason and human common sense, he said, The best is to swim across. But he hadnt foreseen (that was the reckless part) that the water would be icy.
0 1967-04-12, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The first synthesis of L.S.D. was achieved in 1938 by two Swiss scientists. On April 16, 1943, one of them, Dr. Albert Hofmann, inadvertently swallowed traces of this Substance and discovered its strange psychological properties.
Here is Dr. Albert Hofmann's description: "Vertigo. Intermittent sensation of heaviness in the head and the body, as if it were filled with metal. Everything seemed to topple over. When I closed my eyes, I was overcome by an uninterrupted succession of fantastic images of extraordinary intensity. All sound perceptions (the sound of a car, for instance) were transformed into optical effects, each one creating a corresponding coloured hallucination, constantly changing form and colour. At times I felt I was outside my body."
0 1967-08-19, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This morning, during the experience, the body felt the whole bliss of the condition, but it was very conscious of its incapacity to manifest and very conscious in such a perfect peace, like this (gesture with the palms of the hands open upward), in which there wasnt even the intensity of the need. It was simply a vision of how things were, how the condition was. And it was something like this: the conditions of the earth are such, the conditions of the Substance are such that a local and momentary manifestation, as an example, is not impossible, but the transformation that would make possible the new Manifestation of the supramental being and not just as an isolated case, but with its place and role in earth lifedoes not appear to be immediate. That was the impression.
And there was no anguish to know or anything of the sort, there was simply a very tranquil vision of things, absolutely devoid of almost any need: it was like this (same gesture with palms open), as peaceful as can be, smiling, tranquil, with a sense of eternity. All that in this body, which was totally, entirely conscious of its incapacity. Naturally, the body, for its part, very clearly feels it neither knows nor is able to know or will or do: simply like this (gesture with palms open), as peacefully open, receptive, surrendered as possible. And that was the result (the vision that the Manifestation was not for the immediate future).
0 1967-08-30, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Strangely, there are no doors, no windows, no ceiling or floor, all that is self-existent and does not appear to be subject to the law of gravity, that is, there isnt the earths magnetic attraction, yet what you write with (laughing) looks like a fountain pen! What you write on looks like paper; the documents are placed in what look like filing cabinets. You do feel that the Substance isnt the same, but the appearance is very close. And I am still wondering about that appearance: is it because of our ordinary cerebral function that we put the appearance upon things, or is it really like that?
I meet almost everyone there. I told you that you are there quite regularly, and we work. As for you, you dont remember. There are others who remember, but their memory is (Mother twists her finger slightly) just slightly off, that is, not identically what I saw. And when they tell me, my impression is, yes, its because of the transcription in their brain. The objective reality of the material world stems from the fact that if you see the same object ten times over, ten times it looks like itself, with differences that are logical, or that may be, for instance, differences of wear and tear but there too its like that! If you study carefully, even in the physical world no two people see things in exactly the same way. There, it may be more pronounced, but it seems to be a similar phenomenon.
0 1967-10-04, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One thing I know. Its that I deliberately (I dont know if this is what she understood), I deliberately wanted her mothers departure to take place in the most harmonious possible conditions, with the least possible wastage, so she may retain the COMPLETE fruit of her passage in life here, and What I did in reality (but this I didnt tell her), from the moment I heard the news of her stroke (it was an apoplectic seizure), from the moment I heard the news I put her in a bath of the Lord. I kept her like this (gesture of enfolding). So, for me, first of all I knew that if she was to be cured, she would recover fairly quickly, and that if she didnt recover, it would show it was really time for her to go, but then she would go with her body benefiting, so to speak, the Substance benefiting from all the good of physical life, and with her inner being in the best conditions. Of course, the inner being in the best conditions is the case for everyone, for all those who pass away here (but I generally dont have the opportunity to let the inner being go out slowly, you understand4). I saw you know that when Sri Aurobindo left, we kept him for five days; I saw how it happened. I told you, while I stood beside him, it came out of his body and entered mine, and it was so material that there was a friction the body felt the friction of the Force entering. And I saw (of course, in that case it was quite different, tremendous, but for everybody its like that), I saw this: for the departure to be as harmonious as possible, it should take place like that, according to an inner RHYTHM, with the Presence (which is both a protection and a help), the Presence of the divine Force. So I put her in that Presence. And even (I dont know if she told you), when her brother, who is a doctor came, he declared with their usual presumptuousness, Oh, shell be gone before tomorrow noon. I didnt say anything, I remained quiet. Naturally, three more days went by. And even he was forced to acknowledge that there was something there he didnt understand.
What did she tell you?
0 1967-10-07, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats what always stops me, because you feel you pour on them or give them some good Substance
And they change it.
0 1967-10-21, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The vision was so clear (not vision: lived, the experience), it was so clear that it contained in itself the purpose of the creation. You could see the work of the consciousness to permeate the inconscient and make it progressively more capable of manifesting the consciousness (gesture like a flower rising out of the earth), with increasing complications, but the complications are the result of the inability of the inconscientof inconscient matterwhich adds one device to another in the hope of reconstructing the supreme Possibility. Then, through all those complications, and as the Substance becomes increasingly permeated with consciousness, the need for devices will diminish, and we will be able to return to the higher Simplicity.
But all that was lived, seenseen, and so clear!
0 1967-11-15, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats precisely what I see every day with this poor little body and everything around it (seething gesture), all this Substance, oh nothing but illnesses, miseries, disorders, oh! All that has nothing to do with the Divine! An unconscious mass.
You mean, unless something comes and changes that BY FORCE?
--
I tell you, the response is like this: there is a sudden perception (oh, all these things are very subtle, very subtle but precisely, for the consciousness they are very concrete), the perception of a sort of disorganization, like a current of disorganization; at first the Substance making up the body feels it, then it sees the effect, then everything starts being disorganized: that disorganization is what prevents the cohesion necessary for the cells to constitute an individual body, so then you know, Ah (gesture of dissolution), itll be the end. Then the cells aspire, there is a sort of central consciousness of the body which aspires intensely, with as complete a surrender as it can make: Your Will, Lord, Your Will, Your Will. Then there is a kind of not something thunderous, not a dazzling flash, but a sort of well, the impression is of a densification of that current of disorganization; and then something comes to a halt: first there is a peace, then a light, then Harmony and the disorder has vanished. And once the disorder has vanished, there is instantly IN THE CELLS a sense of living eternity, of living for eternity.
Well, that experience, such as Ive told you, with the whole intensity of concrete reality, occurs not only daily, but several times a day. At times its very severe, that is, like a mass; at other times, its only like something that touches; then, in the body consciousness, its expressed like this, with a sort of thanksgiving: one more progress made over Unconsciousness. But those arent thunderous events, the human neighbour isnt even aware of them; he may note a sort of cessation in the outward activity, a concentration, but thats all.3 So of course, you dont talk about it, you cant write books about it, you dont do propaganda. Thats how the work goes.
0 1967-11-22, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But its all ONE SINGLE Substance, the very same everywhere, which was unconscious everywhere; and so, the remarkable thing is that things are taking place AUTOMATICALLY (gesture of points scattered throughout the world), completely unexpected things, here and there, even in people who dont know anything.
(silence)
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is an error too to imagine that, although the physical sexual action is to be abandoned, yet some inward reproduction of it is part of the transformation of the sex-centre. The action of the animal sex-energy in Nature is a device for a particular purpose in the economy of the material creation in the Ignorance. But the vital excitement that accompanies it makes the most favourable opportunity and vibration in the atmosphere for the inrush of those very vital forces and beings whose whole business is to prevent the descent of the supramental Light. The pleasure attached to it is a degradation and not a true form of the divine Ananda. The true divine Ananda in the physical has a different quality and movement and Substance; self-existent in its essence, its manifestation is dependent only on an inner union with the Divine. You have spoken of Divine Love; but Divine Love, when it touches the physical, does not awaken the gross lower vital propensities; indulgence of them would only repel it and make it withdraw again to the heights from which it is already difficult enough to draw it down into the coarseness of the material creation which it alone can transform. Seek the Divine Love through the only gate through which it will consent to enter, the gate of the psychic being, and cast away the lower vital error.8
Sri Aurobindo
0 1968-02-03, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when the body is ready, it will be able to let itself go like that WITHOUT BEING DISSOLVED. And thats the work of preparation. The movement, yes, is to let oneself melt entirely. But the result is the egos abolition, that is to say, an UNKNOWN state, you understand, which we may call physically unrealized, because all those who sought Nirvana did so by giving up their body, whereas our work is to make the body, the material Substance, capable of melting; but then, the principle of individualization remains, and all the egos drawbacks disappear. Thats the present attempt. How to keep the form without the egos presence?thats the problem. Well, thats how it takes place, little by little, little by little. Thats why it takes time: each element is taken up again, transformed. Thats the marvel, that is it (for the ordinary consciousness, its a miracle): its keeping the form while entirely losing the ego. For the vital and the mind, its easier to understand (for most people its very difficult, but still for those who are ready, its easy to understand, and then the action can be much more rapid), but HERE, this (Mother points to her body), for it not to be dissolved by this movement of fusion? Well, thats precisely the experience, thats it. And there is a slight movement of patience, a movement of its really the deep essence of compassion: the minimum wastage for the maximum effect. That is, one goes as fast as one can, but delays arise from the need to prepare the various elements.
Thats precisely the so interesting curve at present unfolding. At times, you feel as if everything, everything is dissolving, getting disorganized; and I have observed closely: at first the physical consciousness wasnt sufficiently enlightened, and when those inner preparations took place, it would feel, Ah, this must be what heralds death; then, little by little, came the knowledge that it wasnt that at all, it was only the inner preparation to be capable, capable of identification. And then, on the contrary, the very clear vision of this plasticity so particular, this suppleness so extraordinary that if it were realized once its realized, it obviously means the abolition of the necessity of death.
0 1968-02-10, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But there are slight oscillations between the old habit of yielding, of being human (with all that it entails), and the other way of being. The other way is vigilant, its on the alert and says, No, no! No more of that, no more! The time for that is over. Because, very clearly, that means a slide towards death; the other way is the ascent towards we wont yet say immortality because thats difficult for this Substance, but life at will.
Well see.
0 1968-05-18, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The material Substance is in process of transformation to become an increasingly perfect and durable multiform mode of expression for that consciousness.
I am going to send it to them. But I appreciated their notes.
--
The concluding state (after having written this note): first there was that completely spontaneous, natural, evident perception of the Consciousness using a thing and then leaving it, letting it fall apart when it can no longer be used but it wasnt that: it wasnt even taking a thing, utilizing it, making use of it until it becomes unusable; it was a CONTINUOUS movement (supple gesture like an immense wave) within a single Substance, with, as it were, moments of concentration and utilization of something to its utmost possibility, and then, moments not of rejection but of expansion, of immensity of peaceof return to a state of immensity of peace so as to take a new shape. A continuous thing, like this (same gesture like an immense wave), but then without real loss, without real waste: death is a mere appearance, you no longer even understand how one can live in this illusion. And THE Consciousness, ONE Consciousness not this and that and this (gesture showing an addition of separate individualities), no, no: ONE consciousness playing.
(silence)
0 1968-06-15, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It means abdicating with regard to the general functioning of the physical Substance, of the body, and having illnesses you get cured of or not, depending on other laws than physical laws. But there is every minuteevery minute the possibility to choose the true consciousness, or there is, yes, a disorder or disequilibrium. Its something which is unable to follow the movement of progressive harmony, or sometimes even which doesnt want to. I am talking about cells and groups of cells.
Most of the time, its a sort of laziness, something unwilling to make an effort, to make a resolve: it prefers to leave the responsibility to others. In English I would call it the remnant, the residue of the Inconscient. Its a sort of spinelessness (gesture of groveling) which accepts a general, impersonal law: you paddle about in illness. And in response to that, there is inside, every minute, the sense of the true attitude, which in the cells is expressed with great simplicity: There is the Lord, who is the all-powerful Master. Something like that. It depends entirely on Him. If a surrender is to be made, its to Him. I make sentences, but for the cells its not sentences. Its a tiny little movement that expresses itself by repeating the mantra; then the mantra is fullfull of force and there is instantly the surrender: May Your Will be done, and a tranquillitya luminous tranquillity. And one sees that there was absolutely no imperative need to be ill or for the disequilibrium to occur.
--
You understand, it has reached a point where there is an impression of fluidity and plasticity asserting itself increasingly with the growth of the true consciousness. The hardening seems to be the result of Unconsciousness; the lack of fluidity and plasticity seems to be the result of Unconsciousness. Not only in the body: for everything the impression is the same. With the growth and the normal state of consciousness, there comes a suppleness and fluidity that completely change the nature of the Substance, and the resistance comes from the degree of unconsciousness alone, its proportional to the degree of unconsciousness.
All this way of speaking [as in the Talk], the ordinary way of speaking seems to be yes, a manner of speaking, thats right! But it doesnt correspond to fact. It doesnt correspond to reality. Its a manner of speaking, a manner of feeling, a manner of seeingan old habit. But its not that.
0 1968-09-25, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As I said, you have it [union with the supreme Consciousness], but as soon as you want to express it, its finished, it becomes again (gesture as if shut up in a box). That means the Substance we are built with isnt sufficiently purified, illumined, transformed (anything, any word) to express the supreme Consciousness without distorting it.
(silence Mother enters an experience)
Its a certain opacity of Matter, of the Substance, which prevents it from being able to manifest the Consciousness and that same opacity (I dont know what to call it), that opacity is what gives Matter the sense of existing.
Its part of the experience of these last few days. For I dont know, for weeks I lived in a sort of fluiditya transparent fluidity and as that transparent fluidity is replaced by this something I now call opacity, a sort of concretization of the bodys existence comes back.
You understand, the psychic beings direct contact with the bodily Substance, without intermediary, gives the sensation (is it sensation? I dont know; its neither sensation nor perception), its a sort of felt vision and that vision is very precise, very preciseof the value of the vibrations in comparison with a higher vibration which is (this is as much as I can say) more directly expressive of the supreme Vibration.
Its difficult to express, but the body is now living an experience it had never had, like going from an imprecision to a precision, from a sort of fluidity to its not something concrete, but from something fluidfluid and impreciseto something precise. Any event (any small event that happens to the body) is an occasion for a new perception. Previously, everything was fluid and imprecise; now its beginning to grow more precisemore precise, more accurate. But it loses a little of its fluidity.
0 1968-09-28, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One night, he saw a red light coming, a ruby light. And it started encircling your body, encircling and as if crushing itimpregnating, crushing it. And once you were quite full of that red Substance, suddenly white sparks started coming out of your body, and that Substance of red light began lightening: it grew pink, yellow, from one color to another, and then it went away. And whup! it formed again, came back to crush your body, and once more there were those sparks coming out of your body and driving the thing away.1
(after a silence)
0 1969-02-05, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It went on for several hours. It wasnt the conception of a work, it was THE work itself, like like when there are levers and things you move to set other things in motion (Mother draws a big control panel in an electronic room), it was something like that, but it wasnt that at all! It was the organization of those groups of figures that determined the events and the ORDER of events (especially the order of events) and their location on earth. And probably, while I was doing it, something wanted me to tell you, and left an impression that I had something to tell you; then everything went away. When I come back to this life, everything goes away; and its only because I now tried to remember that I could (gesture of contact with the memory) catch it: I tried, and it came back. But I realize (almost with surprise) that it must have lasted at least two hours, or moretwo to two and a half hours. I dont sleep at all, but I am active, absolutely active in the (Mother tries to situate the zone)whats being prepared to manifest on earth, I dont know if we should call it subtle physical or Its the creative zone of the physical, its there. And as I cant run from one place to another, what I do is linked through figures, like thatliving figures. Living figures: I organize them, group them together, and I remember what I did the previous day; I say, No, yesterday it was that way, but now it has to be this way, and with the knowledge that it will have to be changed again tomorrow. And thats what determines events. But the consciousness (the waking or ordinary consciousness) MUST NOT know whats decided there; it must know only a part necessary to the execution. Thats why there is a breakit remains, it keeps on living there like that (gesture behind the head), but it doesnt come through. Its wholly because at that time [during the dream] I made the decision to tell you about it that I could catch the memory, otherwise Although I SEE; I see those figures, thats why I can describe them, but they no longer mean anything for me. And I am not sure whether they are figures or letters. They were figures, I know they were; some figures were golden, others were blue (but those arent our material colors, neither our Substance nor our material colors), and I kept arranging them: one group like this, another group like that (gesture like a moving puzzle), then I would choose. Strange. And I must have been very tall, because the figures were big; I would take them and place them (it was on a large surface), and as I placed them, it established a communication and organized the events immediately ahead.
Perhaps I do remember
0 1969-02-15, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thats something strange: all human qualities and faults look like childishnessfoolishness. Strange. And its not a thought: its a concrete sensation. Like a lifeless Substance; all ordinary things are like a Substance lacking lifeTRUE life. Artificial and false. Its strange.
Its not so much in others, thats not it: its the inner training. And this true Consciousness, this true Attitude is something so tre-mendous-ly strong, powerful, in such smiling PEACE! So smiling, incapable of getting angry thats absolutely impossibleso smiling, so smiling and watching.
0 1969-03-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
That completely changes the bodys attitude with regard to solutions: theres no more attachment or sense of extinction, you understand, since the consciousness its the body consciousness that has become independent. And thats very interesting. In other words, in any physical Substance sufficiently developed to receive it, it can manifest.
Thats interesting.
0 1969-03-19, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Since the beginning of this year a new consciousness is at work upon earth to prepare men for a new creation, the superman. For this creation to be possible the Substance that constitutes mans body must undergo a big change.
I write almost in darkness, without knowing what I write, and once Ive written I completely forget what I said!
0 1969-04-09, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
She is an eager disciple of Zen, so she writes that Zen says in one sentence what Sri Aurobindo says in millions of words. She says one could cut out nine tenths of Sri Aurobindos text without removing any of its Substanceyou see the arrogance!2
It means she doesnt understand anything.
--
"This heap of sentences which could be divided by ten without cutting into their Substance."
The first volume of The Synthesis of Yoga will appear in France in 1972, coincidentally in April, exactly three years later.
0 1969-04-23, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Well, there you are. So its all right. In a way, its all right. I feel its still Lets see, let me try to mentalize a bit: the impression is as if the supreme Consciousness had undertaken the work of transformation of the body and were doing it thoroughly, but also without hesitation, without compromise or anything of the sort, and the question is whether the body will hold out. Thats how it is. The body knows itit knows and doesnt have a shadow of fear, I must sayits all the same to it: What You want will be fine. At times it feels a little suffering for one thing or another, a little friction (a pain here or there some pains arent too pleasant), and at such times it always says (Mother opens her hands): As You will, Lord. And within a few minutes at the most, the thing calms down. But it has stopped wondering whether or not it will last, whether or not it will succeedall that is over, gone: Its as You will, as You will. It uses those words because we can use only one language, which is quite incapable of expressing things; we dont know anything else, so we use that language. When it says, As You will, theres this movement of (gesture of dilation and expansion) what should I call it? Its like an easing in all the cellsthey ease up. They ease up in the supreme Light, in the supreme Consciousness, like that. Then you feel the form is about to disappear, but (Mother looks at the skin of her hands) it must be the consciousness contained in the cells [that spreads about]; I dont think its the Substance, because (Mother looks at the skin of her hands) so far it has remained as it is! But that [easing] stays there for a rather long time.
But there are no words to express that, because I think (I dont know whether some people felt it, but if they did, they didnt know what it was because they didnt express it), I think its new. Its new for the body. Its new. A sort of as if one were tense, and the tension were easing, easing up (same gesture of expansion and diffusion). Yes, its quite like that, as when one is tense, like someone full of tension, and it eases up. Now its like that for all the cells.
0 1969-05-17, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Separation is really I dont know what happened. And thats what made all the mischiefall the misfortune, all the misery. For the last few days, this body has gone through a series of experiences (it would be much too long to tell), through all the states of consciousness one can go through, from the sense of the single reality of this (Mother pinches the skin of her hands), of the Substance, with all the misery, all the suffering which is the consequence of seeing matter as the single realityfrom that to liberation. Hour after hour, it has been a whole work. And this incident of Pavitras departure has come as an example, as a demonstration.
But even before that, the consciousness of the cells had realized the oneness the true, essential onenesswhich CAN become total if this sort of illusion disappears. You understand, the illusion which has created all this misery was lived so intensely that it became almost unbearable, with all the horrors and all the terrors it has created in the human consciousness and on the earth. There have been dreadful things. And just after that, just after: liberation.
0 1969-07-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not something spontaneous, its not INGRAINED in the physical Substance, you understand.
But we could try.
0 1969-07-26, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In a living body, but made of another Substance than the physical Substance.
Yes, but thats what I said: that Substance, when, how, what?
But on a much lower level, lasting materializations have been madelike those stones that were thrown in the Guest House, for instance.4
--
So why couldnt this Substance of light materialize in the same way?
(long silence)
The beings who do those materializations (all those mediums) always have a very fat body, and its a special Substance. Those materializations arent permanent.
That of the stones wasthose stones that were thrown.5
--
In a childish imagination, we may picture a Sri Aurobindo whose luminous Substance grows, develops, and when the time is ready, there would only be a transition to be made.
That may be. At any rate, that he is in the subtle physical is certain. He is there all the time.
0 1969-10-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
His reflection about the Ashram is that there is here a privileged Substance, with a knowledge he has never seen anywhere else, but which lacks intensity and energy, and also practice.
Practice, yes.
0 1970-01-03, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then, inside, there will be twelve columns the walls and twelve columnsand right at the center, on the floor, my symbol, with, above it, four symbols of Sri Aurobindo joining in a square, and above a globe. A globe possibly made of a transparent Substance, with or without a light inside, but the sun will have to strike this globe; so, depending on the particular month or hour, it will be from here or there or there (gesture showing the suns course). Do you understand? There will always be an opening with a sunbeam. Not a diffused light, but a beam that will have to come and strike the globe. That requires technical knowledge for its execution, and thats why I want to make a drawing with an engineer.
But inside, there will be neither windows nor lights, it will always be in a sort of clear half-light, night and day: during the day with sunlight, at night with artificial light. And on the ground, nothing, except for a floor like this one [in Mothers room], that is, first a wooden floor (wooden or something else), then a sort of thick rubber foam, very soft, and then a carpet. A carpet covering everything, except for the center. And people will be able to sit anywhere. The twelve columns are for those who need a backrest!
--
But the big temple will be built afterwards, and then on a huge scale. The smaller one will go only once the bigger one is built. But of course, for the city to be completed, we must allow some twenty years (for everything to be in order, in its place). Its the same with the gardens: all the gardens that are being prepared are for now, but in twenty years, all that will have to be on another scale; then it will have to be something really really beautiful. And I wonder what Substance that globe should be made of, the big one? The small one could be made of crystal: for a globe this size (gesture about one foot) I think it will do. The globe will have to be visible from every corner of the room.
It shouldnt be too high above the floor either, should it?
--
Its a kind of tower with twelve regular facets representing the twelve months of the year, and absolutely empty. Only, it will have to hold one to two hundred people. So, to support the roof, there would be inside (not outside, inside) twelve columns; and right at the center, the object of concentration. And with the suns concentration, all year round it will have to get in AS A BEAM (not diffused: it will have to be so arranged that it can get in as beams); then, according to the hour of the day and the month of the year, the beam will revolve (there will be some device at the top) and it will be directed onto the center. At the center, there will be the symbol [of Mother], then Sri Aurobindos symbol supporting a globe. A globe which well try to have made of a transparent Substance such as crystal or A large globe. Then people will be let in in order to concentrate(laughing) to learn to concentrate! No fixed meditations, nothing of the sort, but they will have to stay there in silencesilence and concentration.
(P.:) Its very beautiful.
--
All that is certainly the consciousness of what Sri Aurobindo called the supramental:1 the being to come after man. How will he be? I havent yet seen I havent yet seen that. I did see, I did have perceptions of the superman, the intermediary being, but you clearly feel its only an intermediary being. What will that being be like who will come after the superman? I dont know. Because we are still much too human; when we visualize the Supreme Consciousness in a form, the Supreme Being and so on the Supremewe tend to give it a form similar to the human one, but thats our old habit. I saw that future being (I saw it many years ago): it was clearly a far more harmonious and expressive form than the human one, but there was a likeness, it was still a human form, that is to say, with a head and arms and legs and Will it be that? I dont know. There will necessarily be that as an intermediarynecessarily. There were all those kinds of apes which acted as intermediaries between the animal and man. But lightness, invulnerability, moving about at will, luminosity at willall that goes without saying, its part of supramental qualities, but Oh, yes, also clothing at will: its not something foreign added on, its the Substance that takes on certain forms. All that I had seen, and I told Sri Aurobindo about it, and Sri Aurobindo himself gave me certain demonstrations (I see him sometimes and he shows me). He simply said what the intermediary step will be. But all descriptions are worthless. And when I see him at night (sometimes I spend hours with him), its so natural and spontaneous that I am not even observing, This is like this, that is like thatno. In the morning, with a concentration, the impression remains very strong, but as for the details as we here understand them, you cant say.
Similarly, that sort of thing (Sri Aurobindo too calls it perception), that perception which replaces vision and all the rest is very strong at night. Its hard to say. You have an impression of it when you wake up, but not the capacity; the full capacity is not there.
0 1970-01-10, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There will be twelve facets. Its a circle. And, at the same distance from the center, twelve columns. At the center, on the floor, my symbol, and at the center of my symbol, there are four symbols of Sri Aurobindo, upright, forming a square. And atop the square, a translucent globe (we dont yet know what Substance it will be made of). Then, from the top of the roof, when the sun shines, a ray of sunlight will fall on the globe (only there, nowhere else); when there is no sunlight, electric spotlights will shine a beam (ONE beam again, not a diffuse light) just there, on the globe.
Then, no doors, but after going deep down one comes back up into the temple; one goes under the wall and comes back up insideits again a symbol. Everything is symbolic.
0 1970-04-04, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There was a luminosity. The Substance was not radiant but I cant say luminescent because it was a golden color, but like luminescent bodies: it was a kind of golden mist coming out of his body.
What I meant was: is it an element (I who dont see anything), an element not present now, or not yet present, or what?
0 1970-04-18, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body [Mothers] has certainly been chosen as a field of experiment for some reason, which must be a reason of plasticity of the Substance (I dont know). There may be a reason, but in any case its a fact that it has been chosen to make the experiment. Because the experiment is under way: it starts with the more subtle, and you can see that it goes (Mother makes a gesture of progressive descent into Matter). For months and months it has started with the more subtle, and then, VERY slowly and progressively, it has descended into a more material field. Last night, it was really remarkable. One would have been unable to say, This is the subtle physical, and that is the material physical. It was (Mother holds the fingers of her right hand tightly in those of her left hand), it was surprisingly one within the other. You dont get the impression of TWO things, yet its very differentit seems to be a modality rather than a difference (I dont know how to express it), a modality that comes exclusively from the consciousness. Its a phenomenon of consciousness.
In last nights experience, it was everything at the same time: the body felt, acted, it was conscious, it observed, decidedeverything, just everything at the same time. There even was I dont know, I didnt have a vision of Sri Aurobindo, but I had the sensation of his presence (that often happens: at times Ill see him and he wont speak; at other times I wont see him but Ill hear him, hell speak to me the laws are no longer the same), and he made me notice, or rather I noted that although the body was suffering a lot (the situation was critical, you know), there wasnt the shadow of a fear in the body. Then he told me, Yes, its because it is able not to be afraid that you can do the work.
0 1970-04-29, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I wonder, when those transfers take place in one part of the being or another, its not just the consciousness that changes, something in the Substance changes too, doesnt it?
Its almost in the functioning.
0 1970-05-20, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But the Substance, thats the question: how to [change it]?
Ah! That even the body doesnt [know]. I tell you, thats how it is: now and then, once, twice, three times a day at the most, or once at night: a few seconds (Mother opens her eyes in wonder), and then, poff! its gone.
0 1970-05-27, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Also clothing at will: its not something foreign added on, its the Substance that takes on certain forms.
Ah, yes, thats very important, because I POSITIVELY saw that. Its the Substance itself that takes on now the form of a cloth, now (wavy gesture)
(silence)
--
But one may conceive that a higher consciousness would aestheticize, harmonize this material Substance.
Yes.
--
Then what would form this (Mother points to the bodys Substance), the first formation? We can picture the elimination of wear and tear and an indefinite prolongation with a renewal of vitality, thats quite conceivable, but the first formation?
Yes, matter, Substance.
Well, yes!
0 1970-09-16, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(After Satprem leaves, Mother tells Sujata again about her experience on the roof, and makes a descriptive drawing, saying in Substance:)
She was someone like you, about your height [five foot two], your dimensions, and I said to her, Youre so sweet, so sweet! She was all luminous, but her arms and legs were as if stuck to the body. And no fearnei ther I nor the child were afraid.
0 1970-10-17, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think its the vital Substance Sri Aurobindo calls like that.
and its tyrannical demands that represent the chief natural obstacle invading the whole action of the being.
--
Yes, at that time Sri Aurobindo used the phrase psychic prana, but its not at all the psychic, the soul; I think its the primary vital Substance. He asks also:
Is there some relationship between this psychic prana and the constitution of the Psyche of Western psychologists?
0 1970-12-02, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
From her blind unwilling Substance must emerge
A beauty that belongs to happier spheres.
0 1971-03-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As there is a category of facts to which our senses are our best available but very imperfect guides, as there is a category of truths which we seek by the keen but still imperfect light of our reason, so according to the mystic, there is a category of more subtle truths which surpass the reach both of the senses and the reason but can be ascertained by an inner direct knowledge and direct experience. These truths are supersensuous, but not the less real for that: they have immense results upon the consciousness changing its Substance and movement, bringing especially deep peace and abiding joy, a great light of vision and knowledge, a possibility of the overcoming of the lower animal nature, vistas of a spiritual self-development which without them do not exist. A new outlook on things arises which brings with it, if fully pursued into its consequences, a great liberation, inner harmony, unificationmany other possibilities besides. These things have been experienced, it is true, by a small minority of the human race, but still there has been a host of independent witnesses to them in all times, climes and conditions and numbered among them are some of the greatest intelligences of the past, some of the worlds most remarkable figures. Must these possibilities be immediately condemned as chimeras because they are not only beyond the average man in the street but also not easily seizable even by many cultivated intellects or because their method is more difficult than that of the ordinary sense or reason? If there is any truth in them, is not this possibility opened by them worth pursuing as disclosing a highest range of self-discovery and world discovery by the human soul? At its best, taken as true, it must be thatat its lowest taken as only a possibility, as all things attained by man have been only a possibility in their earlier stages, it is a great and may well be a most fruitful adventure.
Sri Aurobindo
0 1971-04-17, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The new Substances that is spreading and acting in the world contains a warmth, a power, a joy so intense that all intellectual activity seems cold and dry beside it. And that is why the less one talks about these things, the better it is. A single instant, a single impulse of deep and true love, a single minute of deep communion with the divine Grace brings you much closer to the goal than all possible explanations.
(Questions and Answers, 5.14.1958)
0 1971-07-10, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but that means it means the material Substance is transformed.
No, I meant simply the consciousness: if someone has the supramental consciousness, that consciousness should be able to protect the body sufficiently, shouldnt it?
0 1971-12-11, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But if this new consciousness is not to be found on the peaks of the human, where then, are we to find it? Perhaps, quite simply in that which we have most neglected since we entered the mental cycle, in the body. The body is our base, our evolutionary foundation, the old stock to which we always return, and which painfully compels our attention by making us suffer, age and die. In that imperfection, Sri Aurobindo assures us, is the urge towards a higher and more many-sided perfection. It contains the last finite which yet yearns to the Supreme Infinite. God is pent in the mire but the very fact imposes a necessity to break through that prison.8 That is the old, uncured Illness, the unchanged root, the dark matrix of our misery, hardly different now from what it was in the time of Lemuria. It is this physical Substance which we must transform, otherwise it will topple, one after another, all the human or superhuman devices we try to graft on it. This body, this physical cellular Substance contains almighty powers,9 a dumb consciousness that harbors all the lights and all the infinitudes, just as much as the mental and spiritual immensities do. For, in truth, all is Divine and unless the Lord of all the universe resides in a single little cell he resides nowhere. It is this original, dark cellular Prison which we must break open; for as long as we have not broken it, we will continue to turn vainly in the golden or iron circles of our mental prison. These laws of Nature, says Sri Aurobindo, that you call absolute merely mean an equilibrium established to work in order to produce certain results. But, if you change the consciousness, then the groove also is bound to change.10
Such is the new adventure to which Sri Aurobindo invites us, an adventure into mans unknown. Whether we like it or not, the whole earth is moving into a new groove, but why shouldnt we like it? Why shouldnt we collaborate in this great, unprecedented adventure? Why shouldnt we collaborate in our own evolution, instead of repeating endlessly the same old story, instead of chasing hallucinatory paradises which will never quench our thirst or otherworldly paradises which leave the earth to rot along with our bodies? Why be born if it is to get out at the end? exclaims the Mother, who continues Sri Aurobindos work. What is the use of having struggled so much, suffered so much, of having created something which, in its outer appearance at least, is so tragic and dramatic, if it is only to learn how to get out of itit would have been better not to start at all. Evolution is not a tortuous course that brings us back, somewhat battered, to the starting point. Quite the contrary, it is meant, says Mother, to teach the whole of creation the joy of being, the beauty of being, the grandeur of being, the majesty of a sublime life, and the perpetual development, perpetually progressive, of this joy, this beauty, this grandeur. Then everything has a meaning.11
0 1972-01-12, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Everything I say or write gives me the feeling of something cast into an inert Substancelike a photograph, if you will.
Yes, of course! When you talk with me, for instance, well, I feel the whole world of consciousness behind, your words are merely a prop for all that I sense in the background, which you make me perceive.
0 1972-03-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When you begin to understand practically the need for transformation, when the understanding dawns and you try to do something about it, you notice that every time the material Substance receives a blow, the message gets across: for one or two days it aspires for something, it searches; and then it slackens.
Yes, yes.
0 1972-03-25, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But how? Food is already obviously very different and becoming more and more soglucose, for instance, or Substances that dont require an elaborate digestion. But how will the body itself change? That I dont know. I dont know.
You see, I didnt look to see how it worked, for it was completely natural to me, so I cant describe it in detail. Simply, it was neither a womans body nor a mans that much is certain. And the outline was fairly similar to that of a very young person. There was a faint suggestion of a human form (Mother draws a form in the air): with a shoulder and a waist. Just a hint of it.
0 1972-08-09, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I say that it must be the supramental consciousness not consciousness: the supramental Substance. And those who are ready will thus have their new body.
Thats my most optimistic explanation.
--
Of the Substance. The consciousness came long ago, but the thing is. Because, for example, this body has the same needs it used to have; thats the way it is built: it needs to eat, but it cant eat. So when I was told these eruptions would affect even the human body, I thought: could it be the Substance that will create the supramental body?
If the Supramental is to manifest on earth, something of it has to relate to the physical.
--
Do we know what the sun is made of, its Substance?
Yes, Mother. Its a Substance in a state of nuclear fusion; like a gigantic and incessant atomic explosion.
Oh!
0 1973-02-08, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The body the body is made of a Substance that is still very heavy. It is the Substance itself that must change for the Supermind to manifest.
There it is.
02.01 - A Vedic Story, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Agni feared and tried to escape from the burden of his responsibility. He wrapped himself in a thick and vast cloak and hid in the depths of far waters. That is the parable way of describing the difficulty, the apparent impossibility of the undertaking Agni has to shoulder. Curiously however he has taken shelter just in the spot which seemed safest to him, from where begins his work, whose nature and Substance he has to transform, that is to say, the nether regions of inconscience which is to be raised and transfigured into the solar region of the supra-consciousness.
One interesting point in the story is the choice of the gods who formed the search party. They were Mitra, Varuna and Yama. Varuna is the god of the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving unionhis is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and material consciousness, where precisely Agni has taken refuge. Agni is within the jurisdiction of this trinity and it devolves upon them to tackle the truant god.
02.01 - Our Ideal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus the spiritualisation of Matter becomes possible simply because Matter and Spirit are not absolutely different, contradictory or incommensurable entities; they are one and the same reality, in different modeseven as water or water vapour and ice are in Substance one and identical, although different in appearance. Spirit has become Matter and Matter at heart is Spirit. Spirit is latent in Matter, as Matter itself is a possible formulation involved in Spirit. Matter has come out of Spirit as Spirit pressed upon itself and gradually condensed and consolidated into the concrete material reality. Spirit has become Matter by a process of crystallisation, of self-limitation and exclusive concentration. The movement follows a definite line of self-modification, along a downward gradient till it is consummated: it is one among an infinite variety of possible self-modifications, chosen and exclusively developed with a special purpose and a definite fulfilment In view.
A movement of involution through a series of termsof consciousnessof gradually diminishing facial value has made the Spirit terminate in Matter. If it is so, it stands to reason that a movement of evolution, a return journey would make Matter culminate in Spirit. Thus the very fact of Spirit having become Matter, of Matter being a mode of the Spirit, at once creates the possibility of Matter being transmuted into Spirit. Now even granting such a possibility, it may be argued yet that the thing achieved is a resolution of Matter into Spirit; it means the destruction of the characteristic form and consistency that is called Matter. We know, thanks to modern Science, that Matter can be transmuted into pure energy, but then it loses its materiality, it is dematerialised.
--
Here comes the second cardinal principle in Sri Aurobindo's vision of the reality, viz, that an inferior formulation of the Spirit, an involute on a lower plane is not essentially or truly, even in its outer and dynamic nature and character, a mere temporary or by-the-way reality, an epiphenomenon; its sole function is not simply to impede, diminish and obscure the real reality so that it has to be gradually rejected and eliminated on the way back to the source. As a matter of fact, an inferior formulation has a double function; in the line of descent it limits, obscures, deviates and in the end falsifies the higher reality; at the same time, however, it concretises, energises, incarnates what it obscures. But in the ascending line, that is to say, in the movement of reversal from the inferior to the superior, the movement need not be always that of disincarnation and dissolution, it may be that of purification and illumination and fulfilment. The analogy will not be, then, that of Matter being dematerialised into pure energy but that of Matter being transformed into a radiant Substance, not losing itself in the process of radiation, being wholly made of the undying luminous stuff.
Such a movement of transforming evolution is not merely a possibility or a probability: it is a fact of Nature. Indeed, natural evolution means nothing less than that. First of all, evolution means the reversibility of Nature; for, it is the backward movement of an involutionary process. We have said that the supreme truth and realitysat-cit-ananda, as it is calledmultiplied and concretised itself gradually through various steps and stages of a diminishing power of expression or an increasing entropy of self-concealment: the main grades being the Supermind, the Overmind, the Higher Mind, the Mind, Life and lastly the body or Matter. Having arrived at the extreme end that Matter represents,the farthest apparently from the original source, the movement turns round and seeks to go up the ladder through the same gradations it has traversed. But this process of reversal is not merely a resolution and dissolution, it is a process of greater fulfilment and synthetisation, of sublimation as well as of integration.
02.01 - The World-Stair, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In an immaterial Substance linked to ours
In a deep oneness of all things that are,
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Physical Science speaks of irreversibility and entropy in Nature's process. That is to say, it is stated that Nature is rushing down and running down: she is falling irrevocably from a higher to an ever lower potential of energy. The machine that Nature is, is driven by energy made available by a break-up of parts and particles constituting its Substance. This katabolic process cannot be stopped or retraced; it can end only when the break-up ceases at dead equilibrium. You cannot lead the river up the channel to its source, it moves inevitably, unceasingly towards the sea in which it exhausts itself and finds its last repose andextinction. But whatever physical Science may say, the science of the spirit declares emphatically that Nature's process is reversible, that a growing entropy can be checked and countermanded: in other words, Nature's downward current resulting in a continual loss of energy and a break-up of Substance is not the only process of her activity. This aspect is more than counterbalanced by another one of upward drive and building up, of re-energisation and re-integration. Indeed, evolution, as we have explained it, is nothing but such a process of synthesis and new creation.
Evolution, which means the return movement of consciousness, consists, in its apparent and outward aspect, of two processes, or rather two parallel lines in a single process. First, there is the line of sublimation, that is to say, the lower purifies and modifies itself into the higher; the denser, the obscurer, the baser mode of consciousness is led into and becomes the finer, the clearer, the nobler mode. Thus it is that Matter rises into Life, Life into Psyche and Mind, Mind into Overmind and Supermind. Now this sublimation is not simply a process of refinement or elimination, something in the nature of our old Indian nivtti or pratyhra, or what Plotinus called epistrophe (a turning back, withdrawal or reabsorption): it includes and is attended by the process of integration also. That is to say, as the lower rises into the higher, the lower does not cease to exist thereby, it exists but lifted up into the higher, infused and modified by the higher. Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Lire arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter are taken up by the mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey Substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the plant, Life is in its original pristine mode; in the animal, it has become sentient and centralised round a rudimentary desire-soul; in man, life-force is taken up by the higher mind and intelligence giving birth to idealism and ambition, dynamisms of a forward-looking purposive will.
We have, till now, spoken of the evolution of consciousness as a movement of ascension, consisting of a double process of sublimation and integration. But ascension itself is only one line of a yet another larger double process. For along with the visible movement of ascent, there is a hidden movement of descent. The ascent represents the pressure from below, the force of buoyancy exerted by the involved and secreted consciousness. But the mere drive from below is not sufficient all by itself to bring out or establish the higher status. The higher status itself has to descend in order to be manifest. The urge from below is an aspiration, a yearning to move ever upward and forward; but the precise goal, the status to be arrived at is not given there. The more or less vague and groping surge from below is canalised, if assumes a definite figure and shape, assumes a local habitation and a name when the higher descends at the crucial moment, takes the lower at its peak-tide and fixes upon it its own norm and form. We have said that all the levels of consciousness have been createdloosened outby a first Descent; but in the line of the first Descent the only level that stands in front at the outset is Matter all the other levels are created no doubt but remain invisible in the background, behind the gross veil of Matter. Each status stands confined, as it were, to its own region and bides its time when each will be summoned to concretise itself in Matter. Thus Life was already there on the plane of Life even when it did not manifest itself in Matter, when mere Matter, dead Matter was the only apparent reality on the material plane. When Matter was stirred and churned sufficiently so as to reach a certain tension and saturation, when it was raised to a certain degree of maturity, as it were, then Life appeared: Life appeared, not because that was the inevitable and unavoidable result of the churning, but because Life descended from its own level to the level of Matter and took Matter up in its embrace. The churning, the development in Matter was only the occasion, the condition precedent. For, however much one may shake or churn Matter, whatever change one may create in it by a shuffling and reshuffling of its elements, one can never produce Life by that alone. A new and unforeseen factor makes its appearance, precisely because it comes from elsewhere. It is true all the planes are imbedded, submerged, involved in the complex of Matter; but, in point of fact, all planes are involved in every other plane. The appearance or manifestation of a new plane is certainly prepared, made ready to the last the last but onedegree by the urge of the inner, the latent mode of consciousness that is to be; still the actualisation, the bursting forth happens only when the thing that has to manifest itself descends, the actual form and pattern can be imprinted and established by that alone. Thus, again, when Life attains a certain level of growth and maturity, a certain tension and orientationa definite vector, so to say, in the mathematical languagewhen it has, for example, sufficiently organised itself as a vehicle of the psychic element of consciousness, then it buds forth into Mind, but only when the Mind has descended upon it and into it. As in the previous stage, here also Life cannot produce Mind, cannot develop into Mind by any amount of mechanical or chemical operations within itself, by any amount of permutation and combination or commutation and culture of its constituent elements, unless it is seized on by Mind itself. After the Mind, the next higher grade of consciousness shall come by the same method and process, viz. first by an uplifting of the mental consciousnessa certain widening and deepening and katharsis of the mental consciousness and then by a descent, gradual or sudden, of the level or levels that lie above it.
--
Thus naturally there appear gradations of the human personality; as the consciousness in the human being rises higher and higher, the psychic centre organises a higher and higher a richer, wider, deeper personality. The first great conversion, the first turning of the human personality to a new mode of life and living, that is to say, living even externally according to the inner truth and reality, the first attempt at a conscious harmonisation of the psychic consciousness with its surface agents and vehicles is what is known as spiritual initiation. This may happen and it does happen even when man lives in his normal mental consciousness. But there is the possibility of growth and evolution and transformation of personality in higher and a higher spiritual degree through the upper reaches of the higher Mind, the varying degrees of the Overmind and finally the Supermind. These are the spheres, the fields, even the continents of the personality, but the stuff, the Substance of the personality, the inner nucleus of consciousness-force is formed, first, by the flaming aspiration, the upward drive within the developing and increasing psychic being itself, and secondly, by the descent, to a greater and greater degree, of the original Being from which it emanated. The final coalescence of the fully and integrally developed psychic being with the supreme splendour of its very source, the Jivatman, occurs in the Supermind. When this happens the supramental personality becomes incarnate in the physical body: Matter in the material plane is transformed into a radiant Substance made of pure consciousness, the human personality becomes a living form of the Divine. Thus the wheel comes full circle: creation returns to the point from which it started but with an added significance, a new fulfilment.
The mystery of rebirth in the evolution of the human personality is nothing but the mystery of the developing psyche. At first this psyche or soul is truly a being: no bigger than the thumb it is the hardly audible still small voice. The experiences of lifesweet or bitter, happy or unhappy, good or bad, howsoever they may appear to the outward eye and perceptionall the dialectics of a terrestrial existence contri bute to the growth and development of the psychic consciousness. Each span of life means a special degree or mode of growth necessitated by the inner demand and drive of the divine Individual seated within the heart. The whole end in view of this secret soul is to move always towards and be united again with its Oversoul, its original and high archetype in the Divine Consciousness: the entire course of its earthly evolution is chalked out and patterned by the exact need of its growth. Whatever happens in each particular life, all the currents of all the lives converge and coalesce, and serve the psychic consciousness to swell in volume and intensity and be one with the Divine Consciousness. Or, in a different imagery, one can say that the multifarious experiences of various lives are as fuel to the Inner Firethis Psychic Agni which is just a spark or a thin tongue at the outset of the human evolutionary course; but with the addition of fuel from life to life this Fire flames up, indeed, becomes ultimately a conflagration that bums and purifies the entire outer vehicle and transforms it into radiant mattera fit receptacle, incarnation of the supernal Light. The mounting Fire (the consciousness-energy secreted in the earth-bound heart of Matter) finally flares up, discloses itself in its full amplitude and calls and attracts into it the incandescent supramental Solar Sphere which is the type and pattern it has to embody and express. This is the marriage of Heaven and Earth, of which the mystics all over the earth in all ages spoke and sangto which the Vedic Rishi refers when he declares:
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Today I will speak of one of the Vedic rishis. Some names of great Vedic rishis must have reached your earsVashishtha, Vishwamitra, Atri, Parasara, Kanwa (I do not know if it is the same Kanwa of whom Kalidasa speaks in his Shakuntala), Madhuchchanda. All of them are seers of mantra, hearers of mantra, creators of mantra; all of them occupy a large place in the Veda. Each one of them has his speciality, each one delivers a mantra that is in its tone, temper and style his own although the subject matter, the Substance, the fundamental realisation is everywhere the same. For example, Vashishtha is characterised by a happy clarity, Vishwamitra has force and energy, Kutsa is sweetness, Dirghatama is well known for his oblique utterances, his paradoxical apopthegms.1
Today precisely it is of Dirghatama that we will speak. Dirghatama does not mean as the word would indicate to the layman, one who is verytalllaprmurmahbhuja in Kalidasa's phrase. Tama is not the superlative suffix (most), it istamas, darkness. So, from the name itself one may naturally expect that the person was not of an ordinary category. Indeed the amount of stories and legends that have been woven around the name is fantasticqueer, odd, unbelievable, impossible in every way. I need not open that chapter.
--
The old delightful rishito use the epithets he gives to his Agniand blind into the bargain, continues, the Substance and manner in the same way paradoxical and enigmatic, perhaps deliberately tantalising and confusing:
Those who are called feminine are masculine, yes, only they who have eyes can see, the blind do not know.
02.02 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And Matter's Substance of sign-burdened Force, -
Imagined vainly in our mind's thin air
--
From her blind unwilling Substance must emerge
A beauty that belongs to happier spheres.
--
Thence comes the mystic Substance of our souls
Into the prodigy of our nature's birth,
--
A finer Substance in a subtler mould
Embodies the divinity earth but dreams;
02.03 - The Shakespearean Word, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Hast heavy Substance, bleed'st not, speak'st, art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
02.04 - The Kingdoms of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In her Substance of unthinking mute soul-strength
That cannot utter what its depths divine,
02.05 - Robert Graves, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Robert graves is not a major poet, and certainly not a great poet. He is a minor poet. But in spite of his minor rank he is a good poet: here he presents up a jewel, a beautiful poem 1 both in form and Substance. He has indeed succeeded, as we shall see, in removing the veil, the mystic golden lid, partially at least and revealed to our mortal vision a glimpse of light and beauty and truth, made them delightfully sink into and seep through our aesthetic sense.
Like the poet his idol also is of a lower rank or of a plebeian status. He keeps away from such high gods as Indra and Agni and Varuna and Mitra: great poets will sing their praises. He will take care of the lesser ones, those who are moving in the shadow of the great ones and are hardly noticed. Even in these modern days, goddess Shitala, the healing goddess of epidemics, lives side by side with Durga.
02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Being was an inert Substance driven by Force.
44.8
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Compelling transient Substance into shape,
She hopes by the creative act's release
02.08 - Jules Supervielle, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
These hands do not grasp that thing, these eyes do not see that. Try to capture through the senses that tenuous Substance, you find it nowhere. You cannot throttle that reality with your solid fist. Chop off your hands, pluck out your eyes, then perhaps something will stir in that darkness, something that exists not but wields a sovereign power. The eyes that see are not these winkless wide eyes, blank, vacant and dry, before which blackness is the only reality. One must have something of the bedewed gentle hesitating human eyes; it is there that the other light condescends to cast its reflection. The poet says, man with his outward regalia seems to have lost all trace of the Divine in him, what is still left of God in him is just the 'humidity' of his soul1; the 'tears of things' as a great poet says.
The sense that seizes and captures and makes an object its own is not any robust material sense, but something winged and vast and impalpable like your sleep the other consciousness.
02.08 - The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A shadow Substance into emptiness came,
Dim forms were born in the unthinking Void
02.09 - The Paradise of the Life-Gods, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That build the Substance of life's deeper soul.
Earth-nature stood reborn, comrade of heaven.
02.10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
She ferrets out Nature’s process, Substance, cause.
68.42
02.11 - New World-Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
True, there are contrary voices. But as one swallow does not make a summer, even so, many such voices cannot perpetuate the past. The name, even the form of Imperialism is there, but the Substance of it is how much changed, if one goes behind! The British Empire, as it stands today, is composed of three strands, we may say: the first, the front line, consists of Canada and Australia, the second, of Ireland, Egypt and Irak, and the third, mainly of India. This graded pattern shows that it is something fluid and even progressive, there is nothing rigid and final about it. The very nature of the composition seems to exert a pressure working for an equality, an equilibrium of partnership building up a genuine Commonwealth. The model is catching. An Imperialistic Russia, that has found a new avatara in Stalin, has become a champion of federalism, as the best way of preserving the imperial integrity!
India should consider the present situation with calmness, detachment and wisdom, not hark back to the past, brooding over the mistakes and misdeeds of her erstwhile masters they are no longer masters; yes, forgiving and forgetting, one must face squarely the new situation and make the best use of it. India, that claims a spiritual heritage and a high and hoary civilisation, can afford to be idealistic even and envisage a deeper and higher law of Nature, of universal harmony and solidarity, of conscious co-operation. Apart from that, if as practical men, we look to our self-interest, then also it will be wise for us to take up the same line of procedure, viz., what idealism demands. A nation too, like the individual, can be swayed by pride, prejudice, passion, a false sense of prestige and a spirit of vengeance. However natural these reactions may seem to be, in view of the conditions of their incidence, they possess, more often than not, the property of the boomerang, they hit back the originating source itself. It has been said, for example, that the origin of the present war the rise of Hitleris due to the Versailles Treaty that ended the last war, which was, in its turn a war of revenge having its origin on the field of Sedan; this campaign of 1870 again was the natural and inevitable outcome of the Napoleonic conquest. Thus there has been a seesaw movement in national relations without a definite issue. And pessimists of today aver that we are not come to the end of the spiral.
02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And Matter is of thinking Substance made,
Feeling, a heaven-bird poised on dreaming wings,
02.12 - Mysticism in Bengali Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Bengali poetry was born some time towards the end of an era of decline in the Indian consciousness, almost towards the close of what is called the Buddhist period, but it was born with a veritable crown on its head. For it was sheer mystic poetry, mystic in Substance, mystic in manner and expression. The poets were themselves mystics, that is to say spiritual seekers, sadhaks they were called Siddhas or Siddhacharyas. They told of their spiritual, rather occult experiences in an occult or oblique manner, the very manner of the ancient Vedic Rishis, in figures and symbols and similes. It was a form of beauty, not merely of truthof abstract metaphysical truth that rose all on a sudden, as it were, out of an enveloping darkness. It shone for a time and then faded slowly, perhaps spread itself out in the common consciousness of the people and continued to exist as a backwash in popular songs and fables and proverbs. But it was there and came up again a few centuries later and the crest is seen once more in a more elevated, polished and dignified form with a content of mental illumination. I am referring to Chandidasa, who was also a sadhak poet and is usually known as the father of Bengali poetry, being the creator of modern Bengali poetry. He flourished somewhere in the fourteenth century. That wave too subsided and retired into the background, leaving in interregnum again of a century or more till it showed itself once more in another volume of mystic poetry in the hands of a new type of spiritual practitioners. They were the Yogis and Fakirs, and although of a popular type, yet possessing nuggets of gold in their utterances, and they formed a large family. This almost synchronised with the establishment and consolidation of the Western Power, with its intellectual and rational enlightenment, in India. The cultivation and superimposition of this Western or secular light forced the native vein of mysticism underground; it was necessary and useful, for it added an element which was missing before; a new synthesis came up in a crest with Tagore. It was a neo-mysticism, intellectual, philosophical, broad-based, self-conscious. Recently however we have been going on the downward slope, and many, if not the majority among us, have been pointing at mysticism and shouting: "Out, damned spot!" But perhaps we have struck the rock-bottom and are wheeling round.
For in the present epoch we are rising on a new crest and everywhere, in all literatures, signs are not lacking of a supremely significant spiritual poetry being born among us.
03.01 - Humanism and Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is, however, a type of humanism that is specially known in Indiait is not human humanism, but, as it is called, divine humanism. That is to say, the human formula is maintained, but a new significance, a transcendent connotation is put into it. The general contour of the instrumentation is preserved, but the Substance is transmuted. The brain, the heart and the physical consciousness not only change their direction, but their very nature and character. And the Divine himself is conceived of as such a Human Person for the norm of the human personality is an eternal verity in the divine consciousness.
Esoteric Christianity also has given us the conception of the Human Divine; but it is somewhat different from the Vaishnava revelation which has found rather the Divine Human. In other words, as I have already said, one has brought down the divinity nearer to the human appreciation and has humanised it; in the other the human has been uplifted and made into an archetypal reality where the human terms have been more or less symbols and figures having not merely human but a supra-human significance. The entire Vaishnava Lila passes not on this earth at all, but eternally in the eternal world of consciousness cinmayabehind all earthly (and human) manifestation and expression.
03.02 - The Philosopher as an Artist and Philosophy as an Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I wonder why Philosophy has never been considered as a variety of Art. Philosophy is admired for the depth and height of its Substance, for its endeavour to discover the ultimate Truth, for its one-pointed adherence to the supremely Real; but precisely because it does so it is set in opposition to Art which is reputed as the domain of the ideal, the imaginative or the fictitious. Indeed it is the antagonism between the two that has always been emphasised and upheld as an axiomatic truth and an indisputable fact. Of course, old Milton (he was young, however, when he wrote these lines) says that philosophy is divine and charming:
Not harsh, and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
--
It is a grain of this truth that is the Substance and the core of all true art and philosophy. Philosophy works upon this secret strand by its logic, art by imaginationalthough logic and imagination may not be so incommensurable as they are commonly thought to be; even so, both art and philosophy arrive at the same result, viz., the building of a beautiful superstructure.
This golden core of truth comes from elsewhere it is beyond the myic circle of art and philosophy. To have access to it, a lid overhead is to be broken throughra ther, as it is said, it is that that breaks through of its own accord and reveals its identity.
03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now what exactly is this wonderful thing? This power that brings into being the non-being, realises the impossible? Whose is this Call, from where does it come? It is none other than the call of your own inmost being, of your secret self. It is the categorical imperative of the Divine seated within your heart. Indeed, the first dawning of the spiritual life means the coming forward, the unveiling of this inner being. The ignorant and animal life of man persists so long as the inner being remains in the background, away from the dynamic life, so long as man is subject to the needs and impulses of his mind and life and body. True, through the demands and urges of this lower complex, it is always the inner being that gains and has its dictates carried out and is always the secret lord and enjoyer; but that is an indirect effect and it is a phenomenon that takes place behind the veil. The evolution, in other words, of the inner or psychic being proceeds through many and diverse experiencesmental, vital and physical. Its consciousness, on the one hand, grows, that is, enlarges itself, becomes wider and wider, from what was infinitesimal it moves towards infinity, and on the other, streng thens, intensifies itself, comes up from behind and takes its stand in front visibly and dynamically. Man's true individual being starts on its career of evolution as a tiny focus of consciousness totally submerged under the huge surface surge of mind and life and body consciousness. It stores up in itself and assimilates the essence of the various experiences that the mind and life and body bring to it in its unending series of incarnations; as it enriches itself thus, it increases in Substance and potency, even like fire that feeds upon fuels. A time comes when the pressure of the developed inner being upon the mind and life and body becomes so great that they begin to lose their aboriginal and unregenerate freedom the freedom of doing as they like; they have now to pause in their unreflecting career, turn round, as it were, and imbibe and acquire the habit of listening to the deeper, the inner voice, and obey the direction, the comm and of the Call. This is the Word inviolate (anhata-vn) of which the sages speak; this is also referred to as the still small voice, for indeed it is scarcely audible at present amidst the din and clamour of the wild surges of the body and life and mind consciousness.
Now, when this call comes clear and distinct, there is no other way for the man than to cut off the old moorings and jump into the shore less unknown. It is the categorical demand of such an overwhelming experience that made the Indian spirant declare:
03.03 - Modernism - An Oriental Interpretation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Life undefiled, without any admixture or influence whatsoever from other elements and domains that is the one thing that we envisage and create. Life as it is in its own Substance and truth, as it lives and moves in its own rhythm, life in its stark naturalness, albeit raw and crude, the living ore found in the earth's vein, unpolished but utterly au thentic: this is the supreme secret of which we of the modern age are worshippers.
Thus life has come to mean today the life exclusively of the senses, the life that is instinctive, reflexive, automatical in its elan, which is beyond the control of the conscious will and intelligence, the life that is interwoven and unified with body and matter. For it was this life which could never come to its ownnot even in man's primitive stage which was more or less a rigid system of taboos, religious and social, in spite of contrary appearances; it was this life which could not express freely and fully its own truth and reality in its own way, under the domination of what are known as the higher movements of the human consciousness. Life in another sense, as part of this higher and aristocratic movement, had had some autonomy and a field and scope of its own even under the old regime. The life-force that inspires noble ambitions, high enterprises, large creations, vast enjoyments, and proud renunciations, and violent and sweeping passions, has always been to us a familiar element.
03.03 - The House of the Spirit and the New Creation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Shaped Substance by the glory of its thoughts
And moved amidst the grandeur of its dreams.
--
There Substance was a resonant harp of self,
A net for the constant lightnings of the spirit,
--
As if a doubt made Substance, flickering, pale,
This other scheme two vast negations found.
--
Redeeming by its Substance Nature's fall.
Himself he knew and why his soul had gone
03.04 - The Body Human, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The human frame is a miracle of creation. It would not be far wrong to say that the whole trend of physical evolution has been to bring out this morphological marvel. It has not been a very easy task for Nature to raise a living creature from its original crawling crouching slouching horizontal position to the standing vertical position which is so normal and natural to the human body. Man has proportionately a larger cranium with a greater and heavier content of the grey Substance in comparison with the (vertebral) column upon which it is set, his legs too have to carry a heavier burden. And yet how easy and graceful his erect posture! It is a balancing feat worthy of the cleverest rope-dancer. Look at a bear or even at a chimpanzee standing and moving on its hind legs; what an uncouth, ungainly gait, forced and ill at ease! He is more natural and at home in the prone horizontal position. The bird was perhaps an attempt at change of position from the horizontal to the vertical: the frame here attained an angular incline (cf. tiryak, as the bird is called in Sanskrit), but to maintain even that position it was not possible to increase or enlarge the head. It is not idly that Hamlet exclaims:
What a piece of work is a man!... how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable!... the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!1
--
The human frame is the abode of the gods; it is a temple of God, as we all know. But the most significant thing about it is that the gods alone do not dwell there: all being, all creatures crowd there, even the ungodly and the undivine. The Pashu (the animal), the Pishacha (the demon), the Asura (the Titan), and the Deva (the god), all find comfortable lodging in itthere are many chambers indeed in this mansion of the Lord. Man was made after the image of God and yet Lucifer had access into that tabernacle and all his entire host with him. This duality of the divine and the undivine, the characteristic mark of human nature as it is, presents a field and a labour through which man's progress has to be worked out. The soul, the divine flame, has, been placed in Ignorance, that is to say, what is apparent Ignorance, the frame of Matter, just because this Matter in Ignorance is to be smelted, purified, given its original and intrinsic Substance, shape and character. The human person in its actual form is not obviously something absolutely perfect and divine. The type, the norm it represents is divine, but it has been overlaid with all obscure and base elementsit has to be washed and cleaned thoroughly, smelted and reconditioned. The dark ungodly elements mar and vitiate; they must be removed on the one hand, but on the other, they point out and test the salvaging work that has to be done and is being done. Man is always at the crossroads. This is his especial difficulty and this is also his unique opportunity. His consciousness has a double valency, in contradistinction to the animal's which is, it can be said, monovalent, in that it is amoral, has not the sense of divided loyalty and hence the merit of choice. The movements of the animal follow a fixed stereotyped pattern; it has not got to deviate from the beaten track of its instincts. But man with his sense of the moral, of the good, of the progressive is at every step of his life faced with a dilemma, has to pause at a parting of the ways, always looks before and after and is puzzled at a cas de conscience. That, we have said, has been made for him the condition of growth, of a conscious and willed change with an ever-increasing tempo towards perfect perfection. That furnishes the occasion and circumstance by which he rises to divinity itself, becomes the Divine. He becomes the Divine thus not merely in the own home of the Divine, but on all the levels of the manifestation: all the planes of consciousness with all the hierarchy of beingspowers and personalitiesfind a new play of harmony, a supreme and global fulfilment in the transfigured human vehicle. The frame itself that encases the human consciousness acts as a living condenser: the very contour in its definiteness seems to exert a pressure towards an ever larger and higher synthesis, it may be compared to a kind of field office (Einsteinian, for example) that controls, regulates, moves and configurates all elements within its range. The human frame even as a frame possesses a magic virtue.
Vaishnavism sees the Divine as a human person, the human person par excellence. Krishna's body is a radiant form of consciousness (cinmaya), no doubt, but it is as definite, determinate, and concrete as the physical body, it is the physical itself but in its true Substance. And its exquisiteness consists in its being human in form. The Vedantin's Maya does not touch it, it is beyond the illusory consciousness. For they say Goloka stands above Brahmaloka.
The Christian conception of God-man is also extremely beautiful and full of meaning. God became man: He sent down upon earth his own and only Son to live among men as man. This indeed is His supreme Grace, His illimitable love for mankind. It is thus, in the words of the Offertory, that He miraculously created the dignity of human Substance, holding Himself worthy to partake of our humanity. This carnal sinful body has been sanctified by the Christ having assumed it. In and through Himhis divine consciousness it has been strained and purified, uplifted and redeemed. He has anointed it and given it a place in Heaven even by the side of the Father. Again, Marysymbolising the earth or body consciousness, as Christian mystics themselves declarewas herself taken up bodily into the heavenly abode. The body celestial is this very physical human body cleared of its dross and filled with the divine Substance. This could have been so precisely because it was originally the projection, the very image of God here below in the world of Matter. The mystery of Transubstantiation repeats and confirms the same symbology. The bread and wine of our secular body become the flesh and blood of the God-Man's body. The human frame is, as it were, woven into the very fabric of God's own truth and Substance. The human form is inherent in the Divine's own personality. Is it mere anthropomorphism to say like this? We know the adage that the lion were he self-conscious and creative, would paint God as a super-lion, that is to say, in his own image. Well, the difference is precisely here, that the lion is not self-conscious and creative. Man createsnot man the mere imaginative artist but man the seer, the Rishihe expresses and embodies, represents faithfully the truth that he sees, the truth that he is. It is because of this conscious personality, referred to in the parable of the Aitareya Upanishad,-that God has chosen the human form to inhabit.
This is man's great privilege that, unlike the animal, he can surpass himself (the capacity, we may note, upon which the whole Nietzschean conception of humanity was based). Man is not bound to his human nature, to his anthropomorphism, he can rise above and beyond it, become what is (apparently) non-human. Therefore the Gita teaches: By thy self upraise thy self, lower not thy self by thy self. Indeed, as we have said, man means the whole gamut of existence. All the worlds and all the beings in all the worlds are also within his frame; he has only to switch or focus his consciousness on to a particular point or direction and he becomes a particular type in life. Man can be the very supreme godhead or at the other extreme a mere brute or any other intermediary creature in the hierarchy extending between the two.
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is it meant that "Mediaeval obscurantism" was Europe's supreme ideal and that the cry should be: "Back to the Dark Age, into the gloom of Mystic superstitions and Churchian dogmas?" Now, one cannot deny that there was much of obscurantism and darkness in that period of Europe's evolution. And the revolt launched against it by the heralds of the Modern Age was inevitable and justified to some extent; but to say that unadulterated superstition was what constituted the very Substance of Middle Age Culture and that the whole thing was more or less a nightmare, is only to land into another sort of superstition and obscurantism. The best when corrupt does become the worst. The truth of the matter is that in its decline the Middle Age clung to and elaborated only the formal aspect of its culture, leaving aside its inner realisation, its living inspiration. The Renaissance was a movement of reaction and correction against the lifeless formalism, the dry scholasticism of a decadent Middle Age; it sought to infuse a new vitality, by giving a new outlook and intuition to Europe's moribund soul. But, in fact, it has gone a little too far in its career of correction. In its violent enthusiasm to pull down the worn-out edifice of the past and to build anew for the future, it has almost gone to the length of digging up the solid foundation and erasing the fundamental ground-plan upon which Europe's real life and culture reposed and can still safely repose.
If then Europe can cut across the snares that Modernism has spread all about her and get behind the surface turmoils and ebullitions and seek that which she herself once knew and esteemed as the one thing needful, then will she really see what the East means, then only will she find the bond of indissoluble unity with Asia. For the Truth that Europe carried in her bosom is much bigger than anything she ever suspected even in her best days. And she carried it not with the full illumination and power of a Master, but rather in the twilight consciousness of a servant or a devotee. The Truth in its purity flowed there for the most part much under the main current of life, and its formulations in life were not its direct expressions and embodiments but echoes and images. It is Asia who grasps the Truth with the hand of the Master, the Truth in its full and absolute truth and it is Asia who can show in fact and life how to embody it integrally.
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have to rise above rajas and sattwa to enter a domain where one meets the source of inevitable harmony, where the units without losing their true self and nature and returning to the undifferentiated primordial mass, fulfil themselves and are yet held together in a rich and faultless symphony. This is Dharma, that which holds together. Dharma means the law of one's soul. And when each soul follows its own law and line of life, there cannot be any conflict; for the essence and Substance of the soul is made of unity and harmony. The souls move like the planetary bodies, each in its own orbit, and, because they do not collide or clash, all together creating the silent music of the spheres.
This then is the basis upon which the new society and humanity have to be built up, if we want to have a life on earth really worth living. Individuals have to find out their real being and nature and embody that in life. Individuals will associate and combine and form groups in response to the urge and impetus of a group harmony that seeks expression and embodiment.
03.05 - The Spiritual Genius of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To say that Europe was once as religious and spiritual as India herself is not precisely incorrect, but it is to view the matter from too general a stand-point, almost, we may say, grosso modo. In order to arrive at an accurate and precise estimation, and to find out the most significant truths, we have to look a little more closely, observe differences in shade and stress, make certain distinctions. For the things that the ordinary mind indiscriminately designates as religion, spirituality and the like, do not always fall in the same category. These names are often applied to distinct realities, each with its particular dharma, norm and form, wide apart from each other, although to the common eye they may appear to be of the same mould and Substance.
Thus Religion and Spirituality, two fundamental categories that form one realm when held up in opposition to Materialism, are, when considered by themselves, really very different things and may be even contradictory to and destructive of each other. What then is Religion? and what, on the other hand, is Spirituality? Religion starts from and usually ends with a mental and emotional approach to realities beyond the mind; Spirituality goes straight forward to direct vision and communion with the Beyond. Religion labours to experience and express the world of Spirit in and through a turn, often a twist, given by the mental beingmanuin man; it bases itself upon the demands of the mental, the vital and the physical complex the triple nexus that forms the ordinary human personality and seeks to satisfy them under a holier garb. Spirituality knows the demands of the Spirit alone; it lives in a realm where the body, the life and the mind stand uplifted and transmuted into their utter realities. Religion is the human way of approaching and enjoying the Divine; Spirituality is the divine way of meeting the Divine. Religion, as it is usually practised, is a special art, one the highest it may be, still only oneamong many other pursuits that man looks to for his enjoyment and fulfilment; but spirituality is nothing if it does not swallow up the entire man, take in his each and every preoccupation and new-create it into an inevitable expression of its own master truth. Religion gives us a moral discipline for the internal consciousness, and for the external life, a code of conduct based upon a system of rules and rites and ceremonies; spirituality aims at a revolution in the consciousness and in the being.
03.06 - Divine Humanism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet there is a humanism that is proper to Indiait is not 'human humanism', but, as it is called, 'divine humanism'. That is to say, the human formula is maintained, but a new significance, a transcendent connotation is put into it. The general contour of the instrumentation is preserved, but the Substance is transmuted. The brain, the heart and the physical consciousness not only change their direction, but their very nature and character. And the Divine Himself is conceived as such a Divine Person for the norm of the human personality in this view is an eternal verity in the divine consciousness.
Esoteric Christianity also has given us the conception of the Human Divine; but it is somewhat different from the Vaishnava revelation which has found rather the Divine Human. In other words, as I have already said, one has brought down the divinity nearer to human appreciation and has humanised it; in the other, the human has been uplifted and made into an archetypal reality where the human terms are more or less symbols and figures, having not merely a human but a suprahuman significance. The entire Vaishnava Lila takes place not on this earth at all, but eternally in the eternal world of the inner consciousness cinmayabehind all earthly (and human) manifestation and expression.
03.07 - Brahmacharya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The energy that one stores by continence, regular habits and self-discipline increases also in that way. Sometimes special methodskriyaare adopted to help the process, Asana or Pranayama, for example. But an inner and a more psychological procedure is needed, a concentration of will and consciousnessa kind of dhyana, in other wordsin order to be able to take the next step in discipline. For after the storage and increase of energy comes the sublimation of energy, that is to say, the physico-vital energy transmuted into the energy of mental Substance, medh. Sublimation means also the increase of brain-power, an enhancement in the degree and quality of its capacity. This has nothing to do with the volume of knowledge enclosed (the mass of information to which we referred before) the growth is with regard to the very stuff of the mind from within, the natural strength of intelligence that can be applied to any field of knowledge with equal success and felicity.
The basis and the immediate aim of education according to the ancient system was to develop this fundamental mental capacity: the brain's power to think clearly, consistently and deeply, to undergo labour without tiring easily and also a general strength and steadiness in the nerves. The transference of nervous energy into brain energy is also a secret of the process of sublimation. It is precisely this aspect of education that has been most neglected in modern times. We give no thought to this fundamental: we leave the brain to develop as it may (or may not), it is made to grow under pressuremore to inflate than to growby forcing into it masses of information. The result at best is that it is sharpened, made acute superficially or is overgrown in a certain portion of it in respect of a narrow and very specialised function, losing thereby a healthy harmony and homogeneity in the total movement. The intellectual's nervous instability is a very common phenomenon among us.
03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
An Indian Madonna owes its conception to an experience at the very other end of consciousness. The Indian artist does not at all think of a human mother; he has not before his mind's eye an idealized mother, nor even a subtilized feeling of motherhood. He goes deep into the very origin of things, and, from there seeks to bring out that which belongs to the absolute I and the universal. He endeavours to grasp the sense that : motherhood bears in its ultimate truth and reality. Beyond the form, beyond even the rhythm, he enters into bhva, the: spiritual Substance of things. An Indian Madonna (Ganesh-janani, for example) is not solely or even primarily a human I mother, but the mother, universal and transcendent, of sentientand insentient creatures and supersentient beings. She embodies not the human affection only, but also the parallel sentiment that finds play in the lower and in the higher creations as well. She expresses in her limbs not only the gladness of the mother animal tending its young, but also the exhilaration that a plant feels in the uprush of its sap while giving out new shoots, and, above all, the supreme nanda which has given birth to the creation itself. The lines that portray such motherhood must have the largeness, the sweep, the au thenticity of elemental forces, the magic and the mystery of things behind the veil.
It is this quality which has sometimes made Indian art seem deficient in its human appeal: the artist chose deliberately to be non-human, even in the portrayal of human subjects, in order to bring out the universal and the transcendent element in the truth and beauty of things. Man is not the measure of creation, nor human motives the highest or the deepest of nature's movements: at best, man is but a symbol of truths beyond his humanity.
03.09 - Art and Katharsis, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
even if they make us sad do not depress the soul; it is a divine sadness fraught with a profound calm and a strange poignant sweetness of secret delight. The rhythm and the sound and the suggestions so insinuate themselves into our nerve and blood that these seem to be sublimatedas if by a process of oxygenationto a finer Substance, a purer and more limpid and vibrant valency. A consciousness opens in our very flesh and marrow that enables us to pierce the veil of things and pass beyond and understandsee and experience the why and the how and the whither of it all. It is a consciousness cosmic in its purview and disposition, which even like the Creator could contemplate all and declare it all as good. Indeed, this is the Good which Art at its highest seeks to envisage and embody the summum bonum that accompanies a summit consciousness. It is idle to say that all or most poets have this revelatory vision of the SeerRishi but a poet is a poet in so far as he is capable of this vision; otherwise he remains more or less either a moralist or a mere sthete.
Whatever is ugly and gross, all the ills and evils of life that is to say, what appears as such to our external mind and senseswhen they have passed through the crucible of the poet's consciousness undergoes a sea-change and puts on an otherworldly beauty and value. We know of the alchemy of poetic transformation that was so characteristic of Wordsworth's manner and to which the poet was never tired of referring, how the physical and brute natureeven a most insignificant and meaningless and unshapely object in it attains a spiritual sense and beauty when the poet takes it up and treasures it in his tranquil and luminous and in-gathered consciousness, his "inward eye". A crude feeling, a raw passion, a tumult of the senses, in the same way, sifted through the poetic perception, becomes something that opens magic casements, glimpses the silence of the farthest Hebrides, wafts us into the bliss of the invisible and the beyond.
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Buddhism cried halt because of two omissions: it turned man's mind to two new directions. In our eagerness to reach the spiritual and the supra-sensual, we gave scant recognition to the mental and the rational; and yet mind and reason should be the very basis of the life spiritual. And in the pursuit of God and the gods and the things divine, we became blind to human problems, things concerning man in the human way. The earlier vision gives us a happy picture of humanity. The world moves, it was said, from delight to delight, it was born in delight and it consummates in delight. One sang of immortality, of the solar light, of men being children of Heaven and Beatitude. That this material structure on which man leads his precarious existence is a texture of age and disease and death, that misery and undelight is of the very Substance of human life was a hard fact that did not get due recognition. Perhaps it was an earlier, that is to say, a younger humanity
A simple Child,
03.14 - Mater Dolorosa, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole question then is thishow far has this Higher Nature been a reality with us, to what extent do we live and move and have our being in it. It is when the normal existence, our body, our life and our mentality have all adopted and absorbed the Substance of the Higher Prakriti and become it, when all the modes of Inferior Prakriti have been discarded and annihilated, or rather, have been purified and made to grow into the modes of the Higher Prakriti, that our terrestrial life can become a thing of absolute beauty and perfect perfection.
If, on the contrary, any part of us belongs to the Inferior Nature, even if the larger part dwells in some higher status of Nature, even then we are not immune to the attacks that come from the inferior Nature. Those whom we usually call pious or virtuous or honest have still a good part of them imbedded in the Lower Nature, in various degrees they are yet its vassals; they owe allegiance to the three gunas, be it even to sattwasattwa is also a movement in Inferior Nature; they are not free. Has not Sri Krishna said: Traigunyaviayved nistraigunyo bhavrjuna1? only thing we must remember is that freedom from the gunas does not necessarily mean an absolute cessation of the play of Prakriti. Being in the gunas we must know how to purify and change them, transmute them into the higher and divine potentials.
03.17 - The Souls Odyssey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Man, in his terrestrial body, although fallen, because shrouded and diverted from his central being of light and fire, is yet not, as I have said, wholly forsaken and cut adrift. He always carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And that is why at timesnot unoften there occurs a crack, a fissure in the crust of our earthly nature of ignorance and a tongue of flame leaps outone or other perhaps of the seven sisters of which the Upanishad speaks. And then a mere man becomes a saint, a seer, a poet, a prophet, a hero. This is the flaming godhead whom we cherish within, Agni, the leader of our progressive life, the great Sacrifice, the child whom we nourish, birth after birth, by all that we experience and do and achieve. To live normally and naturally in that fiery elementlike the legendary Salamanderto mould one's consciousness and being, one's Substance and constitution, even the entire cellular organisation into the radiant truth is the goal of man's highest aspiration, the ultimate end of Nature's evolutionary urge and the cycle of rebirth.
Wordsworth: Ode on the Intimations of Immortality
04.01 - The Divine Man, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The world is not doomed nor man past cure; for it is not that the world has been merely created by God but that God has become and is the world at the same time: man is not merely God's creature but that he is made of God's Substance and is God himself. The Spirit has shed its supreme consciousness, that is to say, overtly has become dead matter; God has veiled his effulgent infinity and has taken up a human figure. The Divine has clothed his inviolable felicity in pain and suffering, has become an earthly creature, you and me, a mortal of mortals. And thus, viewed in another perspective because Matter is essentially Spirit, because man is essentially God, therefore Matter can be resolved and transformed into Spirit and man too can become utterly divine. The urge of the spiritual consciousness that is the essence of matter even, the massed energy imbedded or lying frozen in it, manifests itself in the forward drive of evolution that brings out gradually, step by step, the various modes of the consciousness in different degrees and potentials till the original summit is revealed.
But there is a still closer mystery, the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret. That is the mechanism adopted by the Divine to cure and transmute human illshimself becoming a man, taking upon himself the burden of the evil that vitiates and withers life and working it out in and through himself. Something of this truth has been caught in the Christian view of Incarnation. God sent upon earth his only begotten son to take upon himself the sins of man, suffer vicariously for him, pay the ransom and thus liberate him, so that he may reach salvation, procure his seat by the side of the Father in Heaven. Man corrupted as he is by an original sin cannot hope by his own merit to achieve salvation. He can only admit his sin and repent and wait for the Grace to save him. The Indian view of Incarnation laid more stress upon the positive aspect of the matter, viz, the role of the Incarnation as the inaugurator and establisher of a new order in lifedharmasasthpanrthya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has -served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift of the human consciousness into a higher mode of being. The physical form he takes signifies the physical pressure that is exerted for the corroboration and fixation of the inner illumination that he brings upon earth and in the human frame. The Indian tradition has focussed its attention upon the Goodreyasand did not consider it essential to dwell upon the Evil. For one who finds and sees the Good always and everywhere, the Evil does not exist. Sri Aurobindo lays equal emphasis on both the aspects. Naturally, however, he does not believe in an original evil, incurable upon earth and in earthly life. In conformity with the ancient Indian teaching he declares the original divinity of man: it is because man is potentially and essentially divine that he can become actually and wholly divine. The Bible speaks indeed of man becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect: but that is due exclusively to the Grace showered upon man, not because of any inherent perfection in him. But in according full divinity to man, Sri Aurobindo does not minimise the part of the undivine in him. This does not mean any kind of Manicheism: for Evil, according to Sri Aurobindo, is not coeval or coterminous with the Divine, it is a later or derivative formation under given conditions, although within the range and sphere of the infinite Divine. Evil exists as a stern reality; even though it may be temporary and does not touch the essential reality, it is not an illusion nor can it be ignored, brushed aside or bypassed as something superficial or momentary and of no importance. It has its value, its function and implication. It is real, but it is not irremediable. It is contrary to the Divine but not contradictory. For even the Evil in its inmost Substance carries or is the reality which it opposes or denies outwardly. Did not the very first of the apostles of Christ deny his master at the crucial moment? As we have said, evil is a formation necessitated by certain circumstances, the circumstances changed, the whole disposition as at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally.
The Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essencesarvabhtntratm but as an individual person embodying that essencemnu tanumritam. Man too, however earthly and impure he maybe, is essentially the Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the supreme consciousness that he is in his true and highest reality. That is how in him is bridged the gulf that apparently exists between the mortal and the immortal, the Infinite and the Finite, the Eternal and the Momentary, and the Divine too can come into him and become, so to say, his lower self.
The individual or personal Divine leaves his home of all blissVaikunthaforgets himself and enters into this world of all misery; but this does not mean that he becomes wholly the Man of Misery: he encompasses all misery within himself, penetrates as well into the stuff and Substance of all misery, but suffuses all that with the purifying and transforming pressure of his own supreme consciousness. And yet pain and suffering are real, cruelly real, even to the Divine Man. Just as the ordinary human creature suffers and agonises in spite of the divine essence in him, in spite of his other deeper truth and reality, his soul of inalienable bliss, his psychic being, the Divine too suffers in the same way in spite of his divinity. This double line of consciousness, this system of parallels running alongside each other, interacting upon each other (even intersecting each other, when viewed in a frame of infinity) gives the whole secret mechanism of creation, its purpose, its working and its fulfilment. It is nothing else than the gradual replacement or elimination, elevation or sublimation of the elements on one line that are transmuted into those of the other. The Divine enters into the Evil to root out the Evil and plant there or release and fructify the seed of Divinity lying covered over and lost in the depths of dead inconscience.
The Divine descends as an individual person fundamentally to hasten the evolutionary process and to complete it; he takes the human form to raise humanity to divinity. The fact and the nature of the process have been well exemplified in Sri Ramakrishna who, it is said, took up successively different lines of spiritual discipline and by a supreme and sovereign force of concentration achieved realisation in each line in the course of a few days what might take in normal circumstances years or even lives to do. The Divine gathers and concentrates in himself the world-force, the Nature-Energyeven like adynamo and focuses and canalises it to give it its full, integral and absolute effectivity. And mortal pain he accepts, and swallows the poison of ignorant lifeeven like Nilakantha Shivato transmute it into ecstasy and immortality. The Divine Mother sank into the earth-nature of a human body:
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Thus then the embodied human person who has the embodied Divine Person before his eyes must know how to instal and incorporate the Divine Person in him, in his body and physical existence. That was perhaps the mystery sought to be conveyed in the Christian sacrament of transubstantiation. The bread and wine that the initiate has to take in representare or become actually and physically, as the Christian mystics assert the flesh and blood of Christ. One has to become the Divine Person in flesh and blood, wholly and integrally. As the fossil is a transmutation in stone, grain by grain, of a living bodyorganic elements eliminated and replaced by the inorganic in the very atomic structure and constitutioneven so, the living human structure, the mental, vital and physical formation will be translated, grain by grain, atom by atom into the divine Substance by the infusion and imposition of the Divine figure.
The Christian mystics themselves, however, do not seem to have aimed at real physical transubstantiationalthough that might have been at the back of the older Hebrew sacrament of the Eucharist; the perfection sought by them was to be enjoyed in Heaven in company of the Father and not on this earth and in this human body: it was more a sublimation than a transformation that was their goal. The flesh for them was always too weak.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Indian consciousness, we say, presented the movement as an intensive and inner, a spiritual process: it dealt with the Substance itself, man's very nature and sought to know it from within and shape it consciously. In Europe where the frontal consciousness is more stressed and valued, the more characteristic feature of its history is the unfoldment and metamorphosis of the forms and expressions, the residuary powers, as it were, of man's evolving personality, individual and social.
To sum up then. Man progresses through cycles of crest movements. They mark an ever-widening circle of the descent of Light, the growth of consciousness. Thus there is at first a small circle of elite, a few chosen people at the top, then gradually the limited aristocracy is widened out into a larger and larger democracy. One may describe the phenomenon in the Indian terms of the Four Orders. In the beginning there is the Brahminic culture, culture confined only to the highest and the fewest possible select representatives. Then came the wave of Kshatriya culture which found a broader scope among a larger community. In India, after the age of the Veda and the Upanishad, came the age of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which was pre-eminently an age of Kshatriya-hood. In Europe too it was the bards and minstrels, sages and soothsayers who originally created, preserved and propagated the cultural movement: next came the epoch of the Arthurian legends, the age of chivalry, of knights and templars with their heroic code of conduct and high living. In the epoch that followed, culture was still further broad-based and spread to the Vaishya order. It is the culture of the bourgeoisie: it was brought about, developed and maintained by that class in society preoccupied with the production or earning of wealth. The economic bias of the literature of the period has often been pointed out. Lastly the fourth dimension of culture has made its appearance today when it seeks to be coterminous with the proletariate. With the arrival of the Sudra, culture has extended to the very base of the social pyramid in its widest commonalty.
04.03 - Consciousness as Energy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is the aim of all Yoga, spiritual discipline, finally to arrive at this consciousness, this supreme reality which is behind all existence, which is the source and the Substance of all. It is in this Consciousness that the whole creation is rolled up and it is from this that it is rolled out. Only there are some paths of spiritual discipline that prefer and follow the movement of in-rolling and others that seek the one of out-rolling: the former is the path of nivtti, the latter that of pravtti.
Thus consciousness is not merely a status of being, but also a force of becoming. All that is to take form and be active, whether in the grossest, the material mode or in the most subtle, the ideative mode is originally a seed, a stress, a point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or is close to the Divine (slokya), he is not merely made in the image of the Divine (srpya), and again he is not merely unified and one with the Divine (syujya) but what is most marvellous, he has the same nature, that is to say, he has the same powers and capacities as the Divine (sdharmya).
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We have spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is also, we must now point out, an Inmost Consciousness. As the Superconsciousness is a consciousness-energy in height, the Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness. If we wish to put it geometrically, we can say, the vertical section of consciousness represents the line from the superconsciousness to the subconscious or vice versa; the horizontal section represents the normal waking state of consciousness; and there is a transverse section leading from the surface first to the Inner and finally to the Inmost. This inmost consciousness the consciousness most profound and secreted in the cave of the heart, guhhitam gahvaretham,is the consciousness of the soul, the Psychic Being, as Sri Aurobindo calls it: it is the immortal in the mortal. It is, as has often been described, the nucleus round which is crystallised and organised the triple nature of man consisting of his mind and life and body, the centre of dynamic energy that secretly vivifies them, gradually purifies and transforms them into higher functions and embodiments of consciousness. As a matter of fact, it is this inmost consciousness that serves as the link, at least as the most powerful link, between the higher and lower forms of consciousness, between the Superconscient and the Subsconscient or Inconscient. It takes up within itself all the elements of consciousness that the past in its evolutionary career from the very lowest and basic levels has acquired and elaborated, and by its inherent pressure and secret gestation delivers what was crude and base and unformed as the purest luminous noble Substance of the perfectly organised superconscient reality. Indeed, that is the mystic alchemy which the philosophers experimented in the Middle Ages. In this context, the Inner Consciousness, we may note, serves as a medium through which the action of the Inmost (as well as that of the Uppermost) takes place.
We can picture the whole phenomenon in another way and say in the devotional language of the Mystics that the Inmost Consciousness is the Divine Child, the Superconscient is the Divine Father and the Inferior Consciousness is the Great Mother (Magna Mater): the Inner and the Outer Consciousness are the field of play and the instrument of action as well of this Divine Trinity.
04.03 - The Call to the Quest, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Out of the Immortal's Substance you were made;
Your actions can be swift revealing steps,
04.04 - A Global Humanity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The aggregates are meant to express, apart from the growing unity, a diversity of achievements in the collective consciousness marking and enriching that unity. The highest, the largest aggregate attained at the present moment is as I have said, that of the nation, the lower and lesser aggregates have been subsumed under it. The principle of integration in its graded course is precisely this that the new unity absorbs the lesser units as its components, some find their place in it in a transmuted form and functionthose that are of use in the new dispositiono thers that had truth only for the past disappear or remain as vestiges of an extinct reality. The clan and the tribe have practically disappeared as living realities; the family has been maintaining itself still as a functioning unit, but it has considerably changed its features and in recent times it has been undergoing revolutionary transmutations. The rigours of the system prevailing in the old world have all but gone, they have been reduced to the minimum; the system has become more or less a mere outline, the Substance and the details have become very vague and fluid. It may come out with quite a new connotation in the not very distant future. The nation, then, as the living unit of aggregation today, is on the move again towards a yet more enlarged aggregate. Empire was a blind and violent attempt at this greater aggregation. The Commonwealth of more recent times was a conscious, deliberate and healthier endeavour towards the same goal. The various trials with regard to a league of nations is also a conscious and deliberate, although somewhat groping experiment in the same line.
Man's attempt to surpass himself and establish a superhuman race is a conscious and deliberate process and the attempt can be successful only through such an willed discipline, sdhan. In the same way, a supranational human unity will be possible as a parallel eventuality to the same process of individual discipline.
04.07 - Readings in Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As, however, mortality bears ill the eternal's touch, the eternal too is intolerant of the mortal natureonly it is intolerant not in the ignorant blind squeamish weak human way, but in a divine way, for it is armed with weapons of light and knowledge, it assaults with its luminous force, the energy of ether and fire, the higher and nobler elements as against the dense dark dumb earth, the lowest element that clothes the human consciousness. Indeed, mortality is enamoured of the tangled beam of joy and sorrow, of laughter and tears, of light and shadow and cannot contemplate the unalloyed sheer delight in Eternity. It is out of breath in the serene rarefied air of immortality; it pines for the terra firma, the mud and slime. The human consciousness has been fleeing the Hound of Heaven down the corridors of Time, and yet it will be caught in the end and wholly transmuted in the divine embrace into the Substance of the Divine Himself. All the unwillingness and protestation and revolt are meant to forge and hammer the final union into something perfect, faultless, absolute.
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04.08 - An Evolutionary Problem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Evolution is purposive: not because it has had always a mentally conscious aim before it, for the mind is a later production, but because the purpose is latent within as an involved force and is gradually unrolled and worked out. It is not as indeterminate and unpredictable as Bergson would have it; it has a veiled determination, a disposition implanted in the very movement by the stress of an apparent unconsciousness seeking conscious formulation. We might also say, reverting to our analogy, that the seed sprouts towards light and air, because it had absorbed light and air in its original formation out of the flower blooming in the open space: the impress of that contact is taken into the very grain of its Substance, in its chromosomes and genesit remains there as an indelible memory (although not of the human cerebral variety). It is no wonder therefore that an inner urge towards light gradually leads towards the formation of the instrument for sight. The organism may have no notion of the external eye, but the external eye is only a projection of an inner eye that lies imbedded in the sensory continuum. Behind the physical eye there is a subtle eye, the eye of the eye, as the Upanishad calls it, the secret gaze of an involved consciousness in the apparently unconscious.
The whole articulation of the external organism is, as we know, contained in a secret disposition of elements within the cellnot in the way, as was once supposed, viz., that a whole full-grown tree lies in a miniature form within the seed andgrowth simply means a gradual enlargement of that form but that there is a pattern of ultimate particlesvital quantaa rhythm and vibration of life energy, that is the origin, the formal and efficient cause, of the material form. Deeper still, behind the blind instinctive urge of life, the unconsciousness that is the inertia of matter, there is a consciousness, a vision, a supernal self-conscious energy that inspires, guides, fashions the whole evolutionary scheme in the large as well as in all details.
04.15 - To the Heights-XV (God the Supreme Mystery), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The very earth of our body is kneaded out of His Substance.
He is the goal towards which the creation wheels in its ceaseless cycles,
04.21 - To the HeightsXXI, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Like a shadow passes out and merges into thy Substance.
September 19, 1933
04.22 - To the Heights-XXII, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The very soul of fragrance has passed into the Substance
Of my transmuted earth. . . . ..
04.27 - To the Heights-XXVII, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
its ancient Substance has dissolved-
it is now my Lord's tabernacle, it is His gestures that are traced there.
04.37 - To the Heights-XXXVII, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The keen and serene Substance of Bliss that it is,
The solar light with the soul of the Moon's concentrated ecstasy.
04.46 - To the Heights-XLVI, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ruby Red-the concentrated essence of the supreme Substance
brought down into our lower sphere
05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Earth symbolises and epitomises material Nature. It is the body and Substance, the very personification, of unconsciousness Ignorance carried to the last limit and concretised. It represents, figures the very opposite of the Reality at the summit. The supreme and original Reality is the quaternary:(1) Light, (2) Truth, (3) Love and (4) Life. They are the first and primal godheads with whom creation starts and who preside over the whole play of the manifestation. These gods that emanated out of the supreme consciousness of the Divine Mother as her fundamental aspects and personalities had automatically an absolute freedom of action and movement, otherwise they would not be divine personalities. And this freedom could be exercised and was in fact exercised in cutting the tie with the mother consciousness, in order to follow a line of independent and separate development instead of a merger life of solidarity with the Supreme. The result was immediate and drastic the precipitation of a physical life and an earthly existence which negated the very principles of the original nature of the godheads and brought forth exactly their contraries: instead of Light there brooded Darkness and Inconscience, Truth turned to Falsehood, Love and Delight gave place to Hatred and Suffering and finally, instead of Life and Immortality there appeared Death. That was how separation, "the disobedience" of the Bible, caused the distortion that turned the gods into Asuras, that was how Lucifer became Satan.
And that was how Paradise was lost. But the story of Paradise Regained is yet more marvellous. When the Divine Mother, the creative infinite Consciousness found herself parcelled out and scattered (even like the body of Sati borne about by Shiva, in the well-known Indian legend) and lost in unconsciousness, something shot down from the Highest into the lowest, something in response to an appeal, a cry, as it were, from the depth of the utter hopelessness in the heart of Matter and the Inconscient. A dumb last-minute S O S from belowa De profundis clamaviwent forth and the Grace descended: the Supreme himself came down and entered into the scuttled dead particles of earth's dust as a secret core of light and flame, just a spark out of his own conscious Substance. The Earth received the Grace and held it in her bosom. Thus she had her soul born in her the psychic being that is to grow and evolve and bring about her redemption, her transmutation into the divine Substance.
This is the special privilege accorded to earth, viz., she has a soul, a spark consciousness imbedded in her unconscious Substance that came from the highest summit, from the supreme Divine himself. And thus earth became the representative, the personified form of the material universe; she became the mouthpiece of the extended universe, the head and front of creation, so that in and through her the supreme manifestation, the incarnation of the Divine may take place.
The Earth has come out of the universe, has evolved out of it as a distinct entity, carrying and developing within it the end, the purpose for which God created the world out of Himself. And as the earth epitomises the universe and becomes the instrument and channel of an evolutionary manifestation, even so man takes up within himself the earthly life and leads it to the high fulfilment intended for it. Earth is there as the home of man, as his mother and nurse; she has fashioned man out of her substratum and is seeking through him the release, the growth and expression of her secret consciousness.
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We have spoken of the stability, the fixity, the rigidity even, of the god type and we contrasted it with the variability, the many-sidedness, the multiple character of the human consciousness. In another view, however, the tables are turned and the opposite appears as the truth. Man, for example., has a physical body and nothing is more definite and fixed and rigid than this material sheath. The gods have no body, but they have a form which is supple and changeful, not hard and crystallised like the human figure. Gods, we said, are cosmic forceslines (or vectors, if we wish to be scientifically precise) of universal forces; this does not mean that they have no shape or form. They too have a form and can be recognised by it even as a human being is recognisable by his body. In spite of variability the form retains its identity. The form changes, for a god has the capacity to act in different contexts at the same time; within his own universe a god is multi-dimensional. The Indian seer and artist often seeks to convey this character of the immortals by giving them a plurality of arms and heads. In modern times the inspiration behind the surrealist movement lies precisely in this attempt to express simultaneity of diverse gestures and activities, a synthetic close-up of succeeding moments and disparate objects or events. But in spite of all changes Proteus remains Proteus and can be recognised as such by the vigilant and careful eye. The human frame, we have said, is more fixed and rigid, being made of the material Substance. It has not evidently the variability of the body of a god. And yet there is a deeper mystery: the human body is not or need not be so inflexible as it appears to be or as it usually is. It has considerable plastic capacities. We would say that the human body holds a marvellous juste milieu. By its solid concreteness it acts as a fortress for the inner consciousness to dwell in safe from easy attacks of the hostiles: it acts also as a firm weapon for the same inner consciousness to cut into the material world and indent and impress its pattern of truth upon an otherwise hard and refractory material made of ignorance and obscurity and falsehood. Furthermore, it is supple enough to receive and record into its grain the pattern and Substance of the higher reality. The image of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ is symbolic of the alchemy of which the human body is capable when one knows how to treat it in occult knowledge and power. The human body can suffer a sea-change which is not within the reach of the radiant body of an immortal.
IV
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As the human aspiration is to reach out towards divinity, the gods too at times are not satisfied with their closed divine status. They lean down to help humanity, to bring it up into their consciousness; but also they seek this contact and unification for their own sake, for a change and transformation in themselves; they may seek to rise further in a higher status of consciousness or they may wish to participate in the earthly travail, in the human endeavour. In either case the channel lies through the human consciousness. In the Vedas the gods always look to men, almost depend upon them for their own fulfilment and enrichment. Men ask the gods for wealth and plentymaterial as well as spiritual the gods too ask from men the sacrifice, the sacrifice that pours out the Substance of the human reality upon which they feed and grow. The Gita speaks of the same covenant the interchange of gifts between the two, each increasing the other and both attaining the highest good.
Our dark destinies move under vast laws that nothing diverts, nothing softens. Thou canst not have sudden clemencies that disturb the world, O God, Spirit tranquil!Victor Hugo, A Villequier.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo aims at a power of consciousness, a formulation of the divine being that is integral. It takes up the whole man and it embraces all men: it works on a cosmic scale individually and collectively. That force of consciousness identifies itself with each and every individual being in all its parts and limbs; establishing itself in and working through their normal and habitual functionings, it moulds and refashions the earthly vessel. It is a global power, first of all, because it is the supreme creative Power, the original energy of consciousness that brought out this manifested universe, the matrix or the nodus that holds together and in an inviolable unity and harmony the fundamental truth-aspects of the' one and indivisible Reality. This luminous source and Substance of all created things consists of their basic true truths which assume disguised and deformed appearances under the present conditions of the world. It is therefore, in the second instance, the secret power in created things which manifests in them as the evolutionary urge, which drives them to rediscover their reality and re-form the appearance as the direct expression and embodiment of this inner soul.
The Divine incarnates, as an individual in the concrete material actuality, this double aspect of the utter truth and reality. There are, what may be called, intermediary incarnations, some representing powersaspects of the Divinein the higher mental or overmental levels of consciousness, others those of the inner heart, yet others again those of the dynamic vital consciousness. But the integral Divine, he who unites and reconciles in his body the highest height and the lowest depth, who has effectuated in him something like the "marriage of Heaven and Hell" is an event of the futureeven perhaps of the immediate future. The descent into hell is an image that has been made very familiar to man, but all its implications have not been sounded. For what we were made familiar with was more or less an image of hell, not hell itself, a region or experience in the vital (may be even in the mental): real hell is not the mass of desires or weaknesses of the flesh, not "living flesh", but dead Matter whose other name is Inconscience. In the older disciplines the central or key truth, the heart of reality where the higher and the lowerBrahman and Maya, the Absolute and the Contingency, the One and the Many, God and the Worldmet and united in harmony was bypassed: one shot from below right into the supreme Absolute; the matrix of truth-creation was ignored. Even so, at the other end, the reality of brute matter was not given sufficient weight, the spiritual light disdained to reach it (vijigupsate).
The integral Divine not merely suffers (as in the Christian tradition) a body material, He accepts it in his supernal delight, for it is his own being and Substance: it is He in essence and it will become He in actuality. When he comes into the world, it is not as though it were a foreign country; he comes to his own,only he seeks to rebuild it on another scale, the scale of unity and infinity, instead of the present scale of separativism and finiteness. He comes among men not simply because he is' moved by human miseries; he is no extra-terrestrial person, a bigger human being, but is himself this earth, this world, all these miseries; he is woven into the fabric of the universe, he is the warp and woof that constitute creation. It is not a mere movement of sympathy or benevolence that actuates him, it is a total and absolute identification that is the ground and motive of his activity. When he assumes the frame of mortality, it is not that something outside and totally incongruous is entering into him, it is part and parcel of himself, it is himself in one of his functions and phases. Consequently, his work in and upon the material world and life may be viewed as that of self-purification and self-illumination, self-discipline and selfrealisation. Also, the horrors of material existence, being part of the cosmic play and portion of his infinity, naturally find shelter in the individual divine incarnation, are encompassed in his human embodiment. It is the energy of his own consciousness that brought out or developed even this erring earth from within it: that same energy is now available, stored up in the individual formation, for the recreation of that earth. The advent and acceptance of material existence meant, as a kind of necessity in a given scheme of divine manifestation, the appearance and play of Evil, the negation of the very divinity. Absolute Consciousness brought forth absolute unconsciousness the inconscientbecause of its own self-pressure, a play of an increasingly exclusive concentration and rigid objectivisation. That same consciousness repeats its story in the individual incarnation: it plunges into the material life and matter and identifies itself with Evil. But it is then like a pressed or tightened spring; it works at its highest potential. In other words, the Divine in the body now works to divinise the body itself, to make of the negation a concrete affirmation. The inconscient will be embodied consciousness.
The humanist said, Nothing human I reckon foreign to me," In a deeper and more absolute sense the divine Mystic of the integral Yoga says the same. He is indeed humanity incarnate, the whole mankind condensed and epitomised in his single body. Mankind as imbedded in ignorance and inconscience, the conscious soul lost in the dark depths of dead matter, is he and his whole labour consists in working in and through that obscure "gravitational" mass, to evoke and bring down the totality of the superconscient force, the creative delight which he is essentially in his inmost and topmost being. The labour within himself is conterminous with the cosmic labour, and the change effected in his being and nature means a parallel change in the world outside, at least a ready possibility of the change. All the pains and weaknesses normal humanity suffers from, the heritage of an inconscient earthly existence, the Divine takes into his incarnated bodyall and more and to the highest degreeinto a crucible as it were, and works out there the alchemy. The natural man individually shares also each other's burden in some way, for all are interconnected in lifeaction at one point has a reaction at all other points: only the sharing is done unconsciously and is suffered or imposed than accepted and it tends to be at a minimum. An ordinary mortal would break under a greater pressure. It is the Avatar who comes forward and carries on his shoulders the entire burden of earthly inconscience.
Suffering, incapacity and death are, it is said, the wages of earthly life; but they are, in fact, reverse aspects of divine truths. Whatever is here below has its divine counterpart above. What appears as matter, inertia, static existence here below is the devolution of pure Existence, Being or Substance up there. Life-force, vital dynamism here is the energy of Consciousness there. The pleasure of the heart and emotions and enjoyment is divine Delight. Finally, our mind with its half-lighted thinking power, its groping after knowledge has at its back the plenary light of the Supermind. So the aim is not to reject or withdraw from the material, vital and mental existence upon the earth and in this body, but house in them, make them concrete vehicles, expressions and embodiments of what they really are.
Pain and suffering, disease and incapacity, even age and death are fortuitous auxiliaries; they have come upon us simply because of the small and partial scale of our life to which we agreed. One can live here below, live a full life, upon a larger scale, upon the scale of infinity and eternity. That need not dissolve body and life and mind, the triple ranges that make up our earthly existence. In brief, man himself is not truly man, he is the reverse aspect of God; and when he becomes divine and remains not merely human, he but realises what he is truly and integrally himself.
05.04 - Of Beauty and Ananda, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Truth is Beauty's Substance-it is Beauty self-governed.
Beauty is Delight perfectly articulate.
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The Truth of a thing is its native Substance, the being in its absolute self-law.
Satyam is that which is of Sat.
05.04 - The Immortal Person, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet the building up of an abiding individual is the secret urge of Nature's evolution: it is the hidden spring of human aspiration and the purpose of God's creation. Not mere disparate particlesof Substance or energy or consciousness breaking up constantly and scattering and finally dissolving into the void (the great law of Running Downor as the Veda figures it, tucchyena abwapihitamabsorbed by the infinitesimal)but a gathering of elements, integrating them into organic wholes, moulding definite forces into definite formssuch is the secret plan behind. Indeed, ego is the first formation, the original instrument which Nature fashioned to carry out this object of hers.
Ego means a hardened core that is not easily broken by the impact of forces. It delimits, ,cuts out, endeavours to maintain its formation by a strong violent self-assertion. Ego is a helper, but also it is a bar. It assists the first formation but delays and obstructs the true and final formation. For the ego is a formation, an individual formation, but on the level of universal Nature: it is of a piece with the normal cosmic movement, only bounded by a peripheral line. In the general expanse it puts up enclosures and preserves and fencings; the constituting elements remaining the same in Substance and quality. Even the delimitation is illusory in reality, it is something like the membrane in the body separating the different functional organs, rigid yet allowing interaction and interpenetration. That is why, when death removes the outward fencing, the individuality also cannot long maintain itself and merges into the general. We may look upon egoism as a kind of artificial or experimental individuality, a laboratory formation, as it were, tried and developed under given conditions. In fact, however, egoism is a shadow or an echo upon this side of our nature of the true individuality which lies and comes from elsewhere.
And that is the soul of the man. We have spoken of the body, the life and the mind of the individual, but beside and beyond these elements which are only instruments there is this secret master and overlord. It is the particle of divinity in each, the developing consciousness the spark of Fire, the ray of Light the immortal in the mortal no bigger than one's thumb." The soul is an individual, an individual formation of the divine reality: it is a godhead formulating an aspect or function of God. We may thus say that the whole purpose of earthly evolution is the evolution of this soul-formation, that is to say, its growing individualisation in light and power, in the expression of the godhead. This growth is first in itself and of itself, its inherent being and consciousness; then, the growth is that of its instrumentation, in other words, the development and organisation of the mind, the life and the body.
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Finally, it is the turn of the body to become individualised, personalised, that is to say, when it takes up the disposition and configurationof the psychic person and individual. The first stage is that of a subtle body individualised, a radiant form of etherealised elements consisting of the concentrated light particles of the divine consciousness of the Psyche. This too is an immortalisation of the personal identity which can be achieved and is achieved by the gnostic man who is to come, who will wholly psychicise and divinise his personality. The second stage is the reorganisation and individualisation of the material sheath itself. The very cells of the body are impregnated with the radiant Substance of the supreme spiritual consciousness; they live the life of the spiritual individual, the personal divine embodied in the individual. When the whole process is gone through and the work clone, the individual body, physically too, shares in and attains the immortality of the soul. The body is firm enough to maintain its physical identity and yet plastic enough to change in the manner and to the degree demanded of it at any time.
In the process of making the body personal and divine and immortal, death or what appears as such may be a needed operation. It is no longer an ineluctable destiny forced upon you, but an instrument which you use consciously for a definite purpose. It is a mystic or occult work (kriy:) which we can try to understand by an analogy. The evolution of the ideal or divine man, the assumption of the mortal by the immortal involves a twofold operation: rejection and integration. Rejection means throwing out the elements that belong exclusively to the lower grade and cannot be taken up and incorporated into the higher; while integration means taking up and absorbing utilisable elements of the lower into the higher. This double process goes on on all the levels, on the mental, on the vital, on the subtle physical and even on the physical level. At a certain stage or in a concentrated process of alchemy the process of rejection may demand a mode of reshuffling and redisposition which physically appears like death, but it is inevitably followed or accompanied by the process of integration or recreation.
05.05 - In Quest of Reality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Take for instance, the romantic story of the massof a body. Mass, at one time, was considered as one of the fundamental constants of nature: it meant a fixed quantity of Substance inherent in a body, it was an absolute quality. Now we have discovered that this is not so; the mass of a body varies with its speed and an object with infinite speed has an infinite masstheoretically at least it should be so. A particle of matter moving with the speed of light must be terribly massive. Butmirabile dictue!a photon has no mass (practically none). In other words, a material particle when it is to be most materialexactly at the critical temperature, as it wereis dematerialised. How does the miracle happen?
In fact, we are forced to the conclusion that the picture of a solid massive material nature is only a mask of the reality; the reality is,that matter is a charge of electricity and the charge of electricity is potentially a mode of light. The ancient distinction between matter and energy is no longer valid. In fact energy is the sole reality, matter is only an appearance that energy puts on under a certain condition. And this energy too' is not mechanical (and Newtonian) but radiant and ethereal. We can no longer regret with, the poet:
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Well, let us proceed a little further. Admitted the universeis a physical Substance (although essentially of the nature of lightadmitted light is a physical Substance, obeying the law of gravitation, as Einstein has demonstrated). Does it then mean that the physical universe is after all a dead inert insentient thing, that whatever the vagaries of the ultimate particles composing the universe, their structure, their disposition is more or less strictly geometrical (that is to say, mechanical) and their erratic movement is only the errantry of a throw of dicea play of possibilities? There is nothing even remotely conscious or purposive in this field.
Let us leave the domain, the domain of inorganic matter for a while and turn to another set of facts, those of organic matter, of life and its manifestation. The biological domain is a freak in the midst of what apears to be a rigidly mechanistic material universe. The laws of life are not the laws of matter, very often one contravenes the other. The two converging lenses of the two eyes do not make the image twice brighter than the one produced by a single lens. What is this alchemy that forms the equation 1=1 (we might as well put it as 1+1=1)? Again, a living wholea cellfissured and divided tends to live and grow whollyin each fragment. In life we have thus another strange equation: part=whole (although in the mathematics of infinity such an equation is a normal phenomenon). The body (of a warm-blooded animal) maintaining a constant temperature whether it is at the Pole or at the Equator is a standing miracle which baffles mere physics and chemistry. Thirdly, life is immortal the law of entropy (of irrevocably diminishing energy) that governs the fate of matter does not seem to hold good here. The original life-cells are carried over physically from generation to generation and there is no end to the continuity of the series, if allowed to run its normal course. Material energy also, it is said, is indestructible; it is never destroyed, but changes form only. But the scientific conception of material energy puts a limit to its course, it proceeds, if we are to believe thermodynamics, towards a dead equilibrium there is no such thing as "perpetual movement" in the field of matter.
Again the very characteristic of life is its diversity, its infinite variety of norms and forms and movements. The content and movement of material nature is calculable to a great extent. A few mathematical equations or formulae can after all be made to cover all or most facts concerning it. But the laws of life refuse systematisation. A few laws purporting to govern the physical bases of life claim recognition, but they stand on precarious grounds. The laws of natural selection, of heredity or genetics are applicable within a very restricted frame of facts. The variety of material Substances revolves upon the gamut of 92 elements based upon 4 or 5 ultimate types of electric unitand that is sufficient to make us wonder. But the variety in life-play is simply incalculablefrom the amoeba or virus cell to man, what a bewildering kaleidoscope and each individual in each group is unique in its way! The few chromosomes that seem to be the basis of all diversity do not explain the mystery the mystery becomes doubly mysterious: how does a tiny seed contain the thing that is to become a banyan tree, how does a speck of plasma bring forth from within an object of Hamletian dimensions! What then is this energy or Substance of life welling out irrepressively into multitudinous forms and modes? The chemical elements composing an organic body do not wholly exhaust its composition; there is something else besides. At least in one field, the life element has received recognition and been given an independent name and existence. I am obviously referring to the life element in food-stuff which has been called vitamin.
Life looks out of matter as a green sprout in the midst of a desert expanse. But is matter really so very different and distinct from life? Does Matter mean no Life? Certain facts and experiments have thrown great doubt upon that assumption. An Indian, a scientist of the first order in the European and modern sense, has adduced proofs that obliterate the hard and fast line of demarcation between the living and the non-living. He has demonstrated -the parallelism, if not the identity, of the responses of those two domains: we use the term fatigue in respect of living organisms only, but Jagadish Chandra Bose says and shows, that matter too, a piece of metal for instance, undergoes fatigue. Not only so, the graph, the periodicity of the reactions as shown by a living body under a heightened or diminished stimulus or the influence of poison or drug is repeated very closely by the so-called dead matter under the same treatment.
05.05 - Man the Prototype, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The essential appearance of Man is, as we have said, the prototype of the actual man. That is to say, the actual man is a projection, even though a somewhat disfigured projection, of the original form; yet there is an essential similarity of pattern, a commensurability between the two. The winged angels, the cherubs and seraphs are reputed to be ideal figures of beauty, but they are nothing akin to the Prototype, they belong to a different line of emanation, other than that of the human being. We may have some idea of what it is like by taking recourse to the distinction that Greek philosophers used to make between the formal and the material cause of things. The prototype is the formal reality hidden and imbedded in the material reality of an object. The essential form is made of the original configuration of primary vibrations that later on consolidate and become a compact mass, arriving finally at its end physico-chemical composition. A subtle yet perfect harmony of vibrations forming a living whole is what the prototype essentially is. An artist perhaps is in a better position to understand what we have been labouring to describe. The artist's eye is not confined to the gross physical form of an object, even the most realistic artist does not hold up the mirror to Nature in that sense: he goes behind and sees the inner contour, the subtle figuration that underlies the external volume and mass. It is that that is beautiful and harmonious and significant, and it is that which the artist endeavours to bring out and fix in a system or body of lines and colours. That inner form is not the outer visible form and still it is that form fundamentally, essentially. It is that and it is not that. We may add another analogy to illustrate the point. Pythagoras, for example, spoke of numbers being realities, the real realities of all sensible objects. He was evidently referring to the basic truth in each individual and this truth appeared to him as a number, the Substance and relation that remain of an object when everything concrete and superficial is extractedor abstractedout of it. A number to him is a quality, a vibration, a quantum of wave-particles, in the modern scientific terminology, a norm. The human prototype can be conceived as something of the category of the Pythagorean number.
The conception of the Purusha at the origin of things, as the very source of things, so familiar to the Indian tradition, gives this high primacy to the human figure. We know also of the cosmic godhead cast in man's mouldalthough with multiple heads and feetvisioned and hymned by sages and seers. The gods themselves seem to possess a human frame. The Upanishads say that once upon a time the gods looked about for a proper body to dwell in, they were disappointed with all others; it is only when the human form was presented that they exclaimed, This is indeed a perfect form, a perfect form indeed. All that indicates the feeling and perception that there is something eternal and transcendent in the human body-frame.
05.05 - Of Some Supreme Mysteries, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If you happen to be in the way of the Divine Power, either you yield to it and are taken up into its Substance and constitution, become an integral part of it, execute in it a special function-
Or, you oppose it and are mowed down and destroyed.
05.06 - Physics or philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The principle of indeterminacy carries two revolutionary implications. First, that it is not possible to determine the movement of the ultimate particles of matter individually and severally, it is not possible even theoretically to follow up the chain of modulations of an electron from its birth to its dissolution (if such is the curve of its destiny), as Laplace considered it quite possible for his super-mathematician. One cannot trace the complete evolution of each and every or even one particular particle, not because of a limitation in the human capacity, but because of an inherent impossibility in the nature of things. In radioactive Substances, for example, there is no ground or data from which one can determine which particle will go off or not, whether it will go off the chance that seems to reign here. In radiation too, there is no formula, and no formula can be framed for determining the course of a photon in relation to a half-reflecting surface, whether it will pass through or be reflected. In this field of infinitesimals what we know is the total behaviour of an assemblage of particles, and the laws of nature are only laws of average computation. Statistics has ousted the more exact and rigid arithmetics. And statistics, we know, is a precarious science: the knowledge it gives is contingent, contingent upon the particular way of arranging and classifying the data. However, the certainty of classical mechanistic knowledge is gone, gone too the principle of uniformity of nature.
The second element brought in in the indeterminacy picture is the restoration of the "subject" to its honoured or even more than the honoured place it had in the Mediaeval Ages, and from which it was pulled down by young arrogant Science. A fundamental question is now raised in the very methodology of the scientific apparatus. For Science, needless to say, is first and foremost observation. Now it is observed that the very fact of observation affects and changes the observed fact. The path of an electron, for example, has to be observed; one has then to throw a ray of lighthurl a photonupon it: the impact is sufficient to deflect the electron from the original path. If it is suggested that by correction and computation, by a backward calculation we can deduce the previous position, that too is not possible. For we cannot fix any position or point that is not vitiated by the observer's interference. How to feel or note the consistency of a thing, if the touch itself, the temperature of the finger, were sufficient to change the consistency? The trouble is, as the popular Indian saying goes, the very amulet that is to exorcise the ghost is possessed by the ghost itself.
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The truth of the matter is that the integral reality is to be seized by an integral organon. To an integralised consciousness the integral reality is directly and immediately presented, each aspect is apprehended in and through its own truth and Substance. The synthesis or integration is reached by a consciousness which is the basis and continent of all, collectively and severally, and of which all are various formations and expressions on various levels and degrees. This is the knowledge and experience given by the supreme spiritual consciousness.
The constancy of the velocity of light, it must be noted, is not altogether an objective fact: it is a supposition by which Einstein tried to explain certain anomalies in previous theories. It is really, as some have pointed out (e.g. Hans ReichenbachAtom and Cosmosp 136), a mental formula, part of a built-in structure, arbitrary to a certain extent which is so arranged that the speed becomes constant and equal for systems in different states of motion.
05.06 - The Birth of Maya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All possibilities are manifested in the Infinite and this line of descent too had to be followed to its uttermost, the entire range of its possibility to be exhausted, negated in its own realisation and brought back to the nature and Substance of its Source.
The beginning of creation is self-objectivisation.
05.08 - An Age of Revolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The search for a universal principle of Nature is a meta-physical as well as a scientific preoccupation. In ancient days, fo example, we had the Water of Thales or the Fire of Heraclitus as the one original unifying principle of this kind. With the coming of the Renascence and the New Illumination we laughed them out and installed instead the mysterious Ether. For a long time this universalreigned supreme and now that too has gone the way of its predecessors. We thought for a time that we had found in Electric Energy the one sovereign principle in Nature. At a time when we had a few elementsdiscrete, different, fundamental units that in their varying combinations built up the composite structure of Nature, apart from the fact that they reposed finally on the ultimate unifying principle of Ether, it was found also that they all behaved in a uniform and identical and therefore predictable manner. The time and the place (and the mass) being given, everything went according to a pattern and a formula, definite, fixed, mathematically rigid. Even the discovery of one element after another till the number reached the famous figure 92 (itself following a line of mathematically precise and inevitable development) did not materially alter the situation and caused no tribulation. For on further scrutiny a closer unity revealed itself: the supposed disparity in the Substance of the various elements was found to be an illusion, for they all appeared now as different organisations or dispositions of the same electric energy (although the identity of electric energy with radiant energy was not always very clear). Thus we could conclude that as the Substance was the same, its mode of working also would be' uniform and patterned. In other words, the mechanistic conception still ruled our view' of Nature. That means, the ultimate units, the particles (of energy) that compose Nature are like sea-sands or water-drops, each one is fundamentally similar to any other and all behave similarly, reacting uniformly to the same forces that act upon them.
Well, it is now found that they do not do so. However same or similar constitutionally, each unit is sui generisand its movement cannot be predicted. That movement does not depend upon its mass or store of energy or its position in a pattern, as a wholly mechanistic conception would demand: it is something incalculable, one should say even, erratic. In a radioactive Substance, the particle that is shot out, becomes active, cannot be predetermined by any calculation, even if that is due to a definitely and precisely arranged bombardment. So we have come to posit a principle of uncertainty, as a very fundamental law of Nature. It practically declares that the ultimate particle is an autonomou unit, it is an' individual, almost a personality, and seems to have a will of its own. A material unit acts very much like a biological unit: it does not obey mechanically, answer mechanically as an automaton, but seems to possess a capacity for choice, for assent or refusal, for a free determination. The mechanistic view presented is due to an average functioning. The phenomenon has been explained by a very apt image. It is like an army. A group of soldiers, when they are on parade, look all similar and geometrically patterned: each is just like another and all move and march in the same identical manner. But that' is when you look at the whole, the collectivity, but looked individually, each one regains his separate distinct personality, each having his own nature and character, his own unique history: there no two are alike, each is non pareil and behaves differently, incalculably.
That is how we have been led almost to the threshold of a will, of a life principle, of a consciousness, however rudimentary, imbedded in the heart of Matter. All the facts that are now cropping up, the new discoveries that are being made and which we have to take into cognisance lead inevitably towards such a conclusion. Without such a conclusion a rational co-ordination of all the data of experience is hardly possible. A physical scientist may not feel justified to go beyond the purely physical data, but the implications of even such data, the demand for a fair hypothesis that can harmonise and synthesise them are compelling even a physicist to become a psychologist and a metaphysician.
05.08 - True Charity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
True charity consists in laying the healing balm upon the sore that lies hidden behind all external miseries which derive from that source and sustainer. And it is in the sole possession of him alone who has found the bliss of the Spirit and dwells in it always. Such a person does not require external accessories for his work of healing and comforting. He need do nothing apparently; he may even appear to be aloof and indifferent. But his presence itself is a healing power: the patient feels it and wonders at the ease and happiness that come into him as if from nowhere. Many physicians have this kind of healing power; indeed without that, a mere medical man, with his pharmacopoeia, is no physician. It may not be well known and recognised, but it is a fact that a good part of the efficacy of medicines lies in the subtle influence, the vital health, that the doctor puts into his medicine or even directly into the body of his patient. And in the case of a spiritual Bhishak, the power can be raised to the nth degree. The healer need not even be present at all physically near the patient; his influence can act very well from any distance. It is quite natural and inevitable that it should be so. For the healing power is in the spiritual consciousness, the inalienable bliss of one's status in the Spirit. One becomes identified with each and every objectperson or thingin one's own self, in the true being and Substance; and the light and happiness that one possesses there inalienably go out in a spontaneous flow to others who are not really others but integral parts and portions of the same self.
This condition is attained, fully and sovereignly, when there is absolute egolessness, when there is no consciousness of a separate person, the dual consciousness of the helper and the helped, the reformer and the reformed, the doctor and the patient. The normal human sense of values is based upon such a division, upon egohood, mamatvam. A philanthropic man helps others through a sense of sympathy giving rise to a sense of duty and obligation. This feeling of pity, of commiseration is dangerous, for it puts you in a frame of mind that tends to make you look down upon, take a superior air towards your object of pity. You become self-conscious, with the consciousness of your inferior self, that you are helping others, doing good to the world, doing something that raises your value: this sense of personal merit is only another name for vanity. Vanity and ambition are the motive powers that lie behind the philanthropical spirit born of sympathy. To denote a shade of meaning different from what is usually conveyed by the word sympathy, modern psychology has I found another wordempathy. Sympathy may be said to be the relation or contact between two egos; it is a link or bridge between two separate and independent entities; empathy, on the other hand, means the entering into the I very being and consciousness of another, becoming that other one; it is identification and identity. This again is what I spiritual consciousness alone can do. Sympathy leads to! philanthropy, empathy is the origin of true charity, the spiritual I compassion of a Buddha or a Christ. Philanthropy is human, I charity (caritas) is divine.
05.09 - Varieties of Religious Experience, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Christian conception seems to occupy an intermediary position, being a sort of connecting link between the two. Christ is not only the Son of God, he is also the God-Manhe declares very clearly and categorically that he and the Father in heaven are one and that everyone should be as perfect as God himself. Still a difference is maintained. First of all, with regard to the birth. The God-Man was not born in sin like ordinary mortals, an immaculate virgin gave him birth. And with regard to the union or identity of Father and Son, the fusion is not absolute. Man is asked to be as pure and perfect as God, but only in kind and not in being and Substance. The purified and perfect souls sit by the side of God in heaven, they do not lose themselves in God. The Vaishnava conception in India was in the same line. The liberated soul, according to it, dwells with God in the same world, possesses God's qualities the union is that of Salokya and Sadharmaya but it does not become one and indivisible with God (Sayujya).
The Sufi doctrine also occupies an intermediate position, like the Christian, between the Chaldean and the Vedantic. The absolute identity of the human lover and the Divine Beloved, a complete fusion of the two at a particular stage or moment of consciousness is one of the cardinal experiences in the Sufi discipline. But that is an innermost state, not normal or habitual in life and activity, where the difference, the separation between the adorer and the adored is maintained exactly for the delight of play. But the dualism in the Indian discipline is more than compensated by the doctrine of Incarnation which obliterates fundamentally all difference between the human and the Divine. According to it, God does not become man only once, as in the Christian view, but that it is one of his constant functions. Indeed, the Indian tradition is that He is always the leader of terrestrial evolution; at each crisis, at each moment of need for guidance, He comes down in flesh and blood, in the form of an earthly creature to show the way, how to live and move and act.
05.10 - Children and Child Mentality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The child, we can take, comes into the world with a more or less clean slate to record the reactions of life. In the early period he is still nearer his psychic being which is not yet thrown back or covered over by the impacts and impressions of the world. The first conscious contacts with the world are not generally happy for the child. He meets things all around that go against the grain of his still sensitive psychic consciousness. The first quarrel he witnesses between his parents, the first rough behaviour or movement of an elder that shakes his attention, the first lie that he hears uttered by his teacher, act almost as shellshocks to his nerves. And as he grows, lessons like these are showered upon him from all sides and no wonder if his consciousness very soon gets warped and twisted, he too begins his own game in the line he observes and experiences. Only, not being guided or controlled by reason and experience, he overdoes the thing, and because of his age, what in an adult is a matter of course, trivial and insignificant, looms large and ominous in his case. The surroundings in which a child lives and grows form the atmosphere which he breathes in at every moment and if there is poison in it, he inhales and imbibes the poison which becomes part of his Substance and nature. A pure environment is needed for a pure life impulse to shape an develop itself.
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05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Once in its place of rest the soul enjoys profound peace and delight and is in a kind of luminous sleep. There it assimilates all the experiences of its last life, that is to say, imbibes out of them all the Substance that goes to increase and streng then its consciousness, the sap that lends itself to the growth of the build and stature of the being. These experiences are meant to bring the soul nearereach life being one step nearerto the fullness of its union with the Divine Consciousness out of which it came originally upon earth as a mere spark, a parcel yet apart. This process may be short or long according to the nature of assimilation undertaken. Here also the being prepares for the impending birth, that is to say, gathers all the elements that will be required for the play of the consciousness in that life. A broad planning too is made here, a scheme in outline of the kind of experiences that one will need for the particular growth of consciousness envisaged. Some forces of consciousness, out of the stock developed and assembled by the being, are kept back, in reserve, others are brought forward for immediate use in the life to be lived next. All this, however, is not the deliberate rational process of the mind, it is something spontaneous, involved, a luminous brooding and incubation, something like the trance of Brahman within which the seed of creation is about to germinate.
The psychic being is a packet of gathered power, a charged battery, as it were; when it comes down upon earth, it calls round itself elements of mind and vital and even subtle physical needed for the purpose of the particular life experience, and even those that would go to constitute the physical body. The psychic being usually picks up these elements of mind and life and body out of the universal store-house of earth's atmosphere as it needs them, in the same way as it returns them there on the journey back after death. But as I have already said, there are beings who have developed well-formed personalities of mind and life and even of the physical consciousness. These formations are not mere loose accretions, temporary arrangements for a life experience, but are welded, organised, given a more or less permanent shape, as the proper instrument of the psychic being, as its own expression. In such cases, the outer personality too continues to exist as an essential mode or vibration in and with the psychic consciousness itself and when the soul descends upon earth, is in contact with the earth's atmosphere, it projects out of I itself the external personality and formation. This does not I mean certainly that the personality remains something fixed and rigid, but that it has attained an essential fullness of form and yet retains the capacity for further change and growth through further growth of the psychic being in other life experiences.
05.14 - The Sanctity of the Individual, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To be a person, it is said, one must be apart from the crowd. A person is the "single one", one who has attained his singularity, his individual wholeness. And the life's work for each individual person is to make the crowd no longer a crowd, but an association of single ones. But how can this be done? It is not simply by separating oneself from the crowd, by dwelling upon oneself that one can develop into one's true person. The individuals, even when perfect single ones, do not exist by themselves or in and through one another. The mystic or spiritual perception posits the Spirit or God, the All-self as the background and Substance of all the selves. Indeed, it is only when one finds and is identified with the Divine in oneself that one is in a position to attain one's true selfhood and find oneself in other selves. And the re-creation of a crowd into such divine individuals is a cosmic work in which the individual is at best a collaborator, not the master and dispenser. Anyway, one has to come out of the human relationship, rise above the give-and-take of human individualshowever completely individual each one may beand establish oneself in the Divine's consciousness which is the golden thread upon which is strung all the assembly of individuals. It is only in and through the Divine, the Spiritual Reality and Person, that one enters into true relation and dynamic harmony with others.
The truth of the personality is not to be found in its horizontal, but vertical dimension. The Existentialist speaks of the existence (standing out) of the human person as a transcendence. But real transcendence is not so much in coming out as in going up and beyond. To be outside oneself is not always to transcend oneself: to be above oneself is the real transcendence. Man is a true and free person only when he is lord of Prakriti, dominating and commanding Nature, when he is identified with Ishwara, the supreme Person, the Master, and becomes an incarnate will and consciousness of His. The soul in ignorance and in ignorant relation with others must rise and envisage its archetype in the Supreme Divine, as a free formulation of an Idea-Force of the Infinite.
05.19 - Lone to the Lone, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The quintessence of spirituality is said to consist in, as has been described in the famous phrase of the Alexandrine mystic philosopher Plotinus, the flight of the lone to the lone. God is a solitary and the other solitary is the soul: so when one solitary mingles with the supreme solitary, the result is utter solitariness, which is spirituality at its apex, its highest height. The world, in this view, is an excrescence, an epiphenomenon Illusion, Maya. God is the transcendent Reality, above and beyond all manifestation, negating all multiplicities and relativities of creation: He is indivisible, single, absolute unityekamevdvityam, kevalamneha nnsti kincana. The human being too is not in reality the individual person bounded within a body, life and mind formation, standing in reciprocal relations with such other formations; his inner core of truth and Substance is a unitary centre of consciousness anguthamitra purua,which is aloof and apart from his apparent and assumed personality and has no dealings with such personalities. God has no updhi, phenomenal qualification, neither has the soul of man. Therefore in his spiritual aspiration, man has to divest himself of all the outer growths that cover and bury his soul: with the clear unmixed vision of his pure soul he has to look straight into the face of the Divine Transcendent, shredded too of its cosmic vesture, and rise from the station of ignorance, this level ground of clay to which it is pinned, and soar and fly and merge into the pure reality of the pure Spirit. Therefore it is said, naked we come into the vale of tears and naked we have to go back to our home. Or in terms of another imagery, it is the pure pouring into the pure, the full mixing into the full.
Some mystics and philosophers recently come into vogue (inspired or encouraged by the Christian or the Buddhist way of Realisation) have emphasised this outlook. But it has also been counterbalanced by another way of spiritual growth and fulfilment: we may call it the modern way, for it has been a pronounced characteristic of the modern consciousness. We referred in our previous essay to the Existentialist who has attracted so much attention in these days, the linchpin of whose philosophy is the value of the individual person, especially the individual personal in relation to each other. Kierkegaard, the Danish mystic, from whom this school is supposed to originate, speaks of the Absolute as the Single One that excludes and annuls all "others", the crowd. He lays especial emphasis upon complete solitariness and total renunciation as the very condition, sine qua non, of the soul's spiritual journey and yet characterises the singlenessof the one in terms that make of it an essential whole, an integer. Man must isolate himself from his phenomenal being, certainlyas the neti netiformula enjoins but also he must first find or become his real self, realise his true individuality before he can reach God, the Divine Self, identify himself with the Transcendent. It is only a freely and truly formed individual being that can give itself to the Divine or become one with it. This true individuality is indeed a solitary being away and apart from the crowd of personalities that surround itit has been called by the Indian mystics, the Purusha in the heart, no bigger than the thumb, the Dwarf Godhead (Vmana).
05.21 - Being or Becoming and Having, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Again, in this ceaseless continuity of progression it is indeed not necessary at all to stop a while or somewhere and become something for one's perfection or fulfilment. The normal ideal that is placed before man or which he himself seeks is that he should become something, a definite pattern of some particular achievement, and possess something in the sense of an acquisition. An ordinary man must have an occupation and even an extraordinary man, the saint or the sage, must embody, that is to say, enchain himself in the name and form of a particular realisationa siddhnta or a siddhi. A man has to be -a soldier, a merchant, a politician or a poet, a philosopher: even so he has to be a bhaktaor a jni, a maunior a vksiddha. Each human being should have a ticket and a roll number, an identity card. Now, for the soul of man none of these or other adjuncts are necessary: its progress and its growth are independent of such auxiliaries or correlates. A soul can be and even express itself perfectly at the highest point of its being without formulating itself, binding itself in a scheme of some external achievement or functioning. The soul need not possess any of the gloriesaiwaryasto realise itself, in order to be the abode of the Divine. Its very existence is full to the brim of the Substance of the truth and its simple living marks the law or rhythm of that Truth.
A soulful man, whatever he says, thinks, feels or acts, always embodies wholly the Divine. Not that because he says, acts, thinks or feels in a certain manner that he has attained perfection or is in dynamic union with the summit a d integral consciousness. As the Mother brings out the distinction, although in a somewhat different context, the perfect soul-existence .cannot be judged by the forms it takes, the forms themselves have to be judged by the soul-existence.
05.27 - The Nature of Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That bed-rock is one's inmost spiritual being, the divine consciousness which is at once an individual centre, a cosmic or universal field of existence and a transcendent truth and reality. With that as the nucleus and around it the whole system has to be arranged and organised: according to the demand of the will and vision composing that consciousness, life has to manifest itself and play out its appointed role. Its configuration or disposition will be wholly determined by the Divine Purpose working in and through it; its fullness will be the fullness of the Divine Presence and intention. The mind will be wholly illumined, the vital with it will become the pure energy of Consciousness and the physical body will be made out of the Substance of the divine being: our humanity will be the home and sanctuary of the Divine.
***
05.29 - Vengeance is Mine, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Do we then propose taking it all lying down, it may be asked? Is martyrdom then our ideal? Not so, for we do not believe that evil forces can be appeased or conquered or transformed by yielding to them, letting them free to have their own way. Otherwise Krishna would not have enjoined and inspired (almost incited) Arjuna to enter on a bloody battle. Still forces, whether good or bad, are conquered or quelled or transformed truly and permanently by forces that belong not to the same level of being or consciousness, but to a higher one. Instead of working in a parallelogram of forces, we must take recourse, as it were, to a pyramid of forces. We know of the ideal of soul-force standing against and seeking to persuade or peacefully subdue brute force. It is not an impossibility; only we must be able really to get to the true soul and not a semblance or substitute of it. The true soul is .man's spiritual or divine being the consciousness in which man is one in Substance and nature with God. It is not a mere thought formation, a mental and moral ideal. The only force that can succeed against a lower or undivine force is God's own force and the success can be complete and absolute by the calling in or intervention of God's force in its highest status. Anything less than that will be no more than a temporary lull or adjustment.
The world is not changed in spite of many efforts, because man is always taking to human means, he is not allowing God to do God's work, but putting his own individual initiative in God's place, taking perhaps God's name on the lips with a secret, unconscious feeling that unless he himself does something nothing will be donekarthamiti manyate. Human means may achieve at its best a compromise, but no permanent solution: it is often the beginning of a worse situation, a greater disharmony and conflictpeace, it has been said, is only a preparation for war. That vicious circle can be and has to be cut by the razor-blade consciousness of the aspirant to life divine who by the clear and tranquil energy of his tapascan call down a divine interference in mortal affairs.
05.34 - Light, more Light, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Light is its own au thenticity. Modern knowledge has reduced the material universe to light particles: that is the ultimate reality which is cognisable to the human sense, beyond which there is no means to go. All other objects are reflections, measures or derivations of this single primordial Substanceat least all have to reach our perception through this intermediary. And its movement, its velocity too is the standard of measure for all movements: the velocity is constant and nothing can exceed it (that is Einstein).
There is an inner light too. The virtues of the outer light only translate something of the nature of the inner light. You cannot prove the existence of light, inner or outer; it exists in its own light and itself serves to prove things that exist. Not only that. Light is not only a power of knowledge, it is also a power of action: it not only illumines, but also purifies. It clears up and as well cleans up.
06.23 - Here or Elsewhere, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the same way, there are souls that have emerged out of the fire of earthly life and are enjoying the safety and security of the heavens; but they have been called to come back into the world, add to the experience of the tranquil above the experience of the trouble below. Surely it increases the scope of their consciousness. But to turn upon the world means also to re-enter into ignorance, for this world means ignorance, as it is, it is nothing but ignorance. The role then of one who returns is once more to embrace ignorance, but with a view to bringing into it the light and bliss that he gained from above, permeating the stuff of the present world with the Substance of the higher consciousness. It is a sacrifice demanded of him, thus to abandon the eternal felicity of the high heavens the unbroken union with the Divine above and to enter into the depths of this great perilous world: but this is a privilege too, to bring solace to the afflicted, the transforming light to obscure souls, the radiant energy to inert earth. It is a high privilege for which the luminous soul is thankful: he modestly accepts a gift of grace from the Supreme. He accepts the Ignorance and offers it: he lays it at the feet of the Supreme so that it may be transmuted into lightlight here below. His own role is that of a modest intermediary.
***
06.29 - Towards Redemption, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As I have often said, creation is the self-objectivisation of the Supreme Divine; it is the supreme consciousness putting itself lout of itself so that it may look at itself. In so doingin self-objectifying and self-dividingit scattered itself abroad: the one infinite multiplied itself into infinite atoms. Not only so, in detaching itself from itself the consciousness became the very opposite of itself: consciousness became unconsciousness, spirit became matter, delight became pain, knowledge' became ignorance, and light became darkness. Boundless universality was the essential nature of the Divine, now it got clotted into the knots of egoism upon which is based this inconscient creation. In the midst of this utter negation, this denial by the universe of its origin, the Divine Love descended and lodged itself in order to bring back the erring creation to its lost home. The Divine Love became involved and entangled in the Inconscient, became one with it; only so could she (it was indeed the Divine Mother in her Grace) suffuse the inconscient universe with her own Substance and transmute it into its original nature. The first effect or visible sign of this descent or divine infusion is the emergence of the psychic or the soul element in the material body: it is the speck of consciousness imbedded in matter, inhabiting the apparently dead particle or aggregate of particles, which continually grows in and through its relation of action and reaction with its surrounding unconsciousness, and at the same time extending its light into that darkness transforms it gradually into what it was originally at its source.
The origin of creation is an individualisation the manifestation or emanation of many, as units, out of the undivided and indivisible Single. It meant freedom for each unit to choose: the individual became, so to say, a unit of freedom. The immediate result, however, was not very successful, apparently, that is to say. For the individual unit chose to follow a path exactly opposite to its origin: the individualisation happened as if an element shot out of the infinite unity and flung itself in its momentum, as far away as possible, to the other pole. That is how the one spirit became the infinite particles of inconscient matter. The purpose and problem then set was to bring back the straying elements to their source and origin. The work was long travail. It took and it is taking even now ages for the one Being who could do the thing to prepare slowly, mount the steps gradually along which creation slid down, recover the ground painfully and achieve the hidden purpose, vindicating amply the deviation and the fall. Through devious ways, long, winding, arduous marches the spirit of evolution laboured through millenniums; it was the instrument utilised by the Divine Grace.
06.30 - Sweet Holy Tears, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It was not easy to prepare the Feast. I had to bear the full load of the cross and ascend the calvary. Jesus as he mounted to his destiny with the Cross on his back stumbled often and fell and rose again with bruised limbs to begin again the arduous journey. Even so, this being too had to go through many disillusions and deceptions, many painful and brutal experiences. It was not a smooth and straight going, but a tortuous and dangerous ascent. But at the end of the tunnel there is always the light. The calvary and the crucifixion culminated in the Resurrection: the divine Passion of Christ flowered into this supreme Recompense. Here too after all the dark and adverse vicissitudes lies the fulfilment of transformation. One must pass through the entire valley of death and rise to the topmost summit to receive and achieve the fullness of the glory. One must leave behind all the lower ranges of ignorance, the entire domain of human consciousness, come out of the imperfection man is made of; then only will he put on the divine nature as his own body and Substance.
The Cross symbolises all the suffering and difficulty, the renunciation and self-denudation that the ascent to the Goal involves. The Calvary of the Christian legend means Ascension and Resurrection is Transformation in our sadhana. The Cross is also symbolic of the Transformed consciousness. It has three branches and represents the triple Divine, the Divine in his three modes of existence. The top branch, the vertical portion above the transverse line, stands for the supreme or transcendent Divine, one who is above manifestation; the middle the transverse or horizontal branch stands for the expanse of the universal consciousness, the Cosmic Divine; and the bottom portion, the vertical line below the transverse stands for the individual Divine immanent or imbedded in the manifestation. You will note that the flower we call transformation has a form similar to the Cross.
06.31 - Identification of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Another instance will show another kind of identification. It is an experience to which I have often referred. I was seated, drawn in and meditating. I felt that my physical body was I dissolving or changing: it was becoming wider and wider, losing its human characters and taking gradually the shape of a globe. Arms, legs, head were no longer there: it became spherical, having exactly the form of the earth. I felt I had become the earth. I was the earth in form and Substance and all terrestrial objects were in me, animals and people, living and moving in me, trees and plants and even inanimate objects as part of myself, limbs of my body: I was the earth-consciousness incarnate.
But the point is to be this individual consciousness anywhere I or everywhere and still to maintain the higher, the universal and transcendent, the supreme consciousness, to be simultaneously conscious in both the modes to the utmost degree.
06.32 - The Central Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The first condition, however, to arrive at the crucial or synthetic state of consciousness (which is, in fact, the basic supramental consciousness, as Sri Aurobindo calls it) is the realisation that the world, that is to say, physical consciousness does not exist by itself. By itself, it is nothing. As the Prayer says, it knows nothing, it can do nothing, it is nothing.1 This realisation must not be merely a mental perception, a perception in the inner consciousness alone; but the body, the physical existence itself must be conscious and in that consciousness see and experience the truth that by itself it is a void, non-existence: it becomes so however only to find that it is real, supremely real when it is suffused with its true Substance, when it is the embodiment or vehicle of the supramental consciousness.
The Mother: Prayers and Meditations, 19 May 1914
07.05 - This Mystery of Existence, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Have you ever asked yourself why there is this universe at all, at least this earth with which we are so much concerned and which seems to us so real, so au thentic? It would perhaps be very wise on your part if you did not! I have often spoken to you of Theon. He was truly a sage in his own way. People used to come to him and ask questions. Many asked why there was a universe. He would answer, But what is that to you? Some would ask, Why is the universe like this? To that ht would say, It is what it is, how does it matter? Others again would remark, I do not consider the world a satisfactory affair. There, we begin to come more to the point. To those who find the world unsatisfactory I would say, Get to work, try to change it. Find a way that it may be otherwise, that it may be made better. Things are what they are, it is no use speculating over that and getting worried. Seek for the means of remedy, so that things may be made what they should be. Why are things what they are? Not that one cannot know the reason, although one may not always be sure of it. The best thing to do is to take whatever is as it is and try to change it towards that which it ought to be. Now the wonder of it is that if you are sincere, if you want to know sincerely and work sincerely, you will come to know why things are what they are the cause, the origin and the process, for they are all one. There is one truth at the base of things; if that were not there, nothing would be. If you seize that truth, you seize at the same time the origin of the creation and the means of changing it as well. In other words, if you are in contact with the Divine for the Divine is that baseyou are in possession of the key to all things, you know the why, the how and the process for change. One thing to do then is to start doing the thing. But you might say, it is too much, too difficult, too big for youto work in the world or for the world. Well then, start with yourself. You are a little mass of Substance, a symbol or representative of the universe. Let your work then be to form and refashion that particle. Concentrate upon it, go withineven within that little person of yourself you will find the long looked-for key.
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07.06 - Nirvana and the Discovery of the All-Negating Absolute, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Her spirit seemed the Substance of a name,
The world a pictured symbol drawn on self,
07.07 - The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All had a Substance of Eternity.
Yet this was the same Indecipherable;
07.35 - The Force of Body-Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a state of consciousness in which you perceive that the effect of things, circumstances, movements, all the activities of life upon yourself depends almost exclusively upon your attitude towards them. You become then conscious, conscious to the extent of realising that things in themselves are neither good nor bad, they are so only in relation to ourselves: their effect, I say, depends entirely upon the way in which we regard these things. If we take, for example, a circumstance as a gift from God, as a divine Grace, as an outcome of the total harmony, it will help us to become more conscious and truer and stronger. The same identical circumstance, if we take it differently, as a blow of Fate, as a bad force wishing us harm, becomes, on the contrary, a damper on our consciousness, it saps our strength, brings obscurity, creates disharmony. And yet in either case it is altogether the same circumstance. I would like you to have the experience and make the experiment. For your ideal is to be master of yourselves. But not that only. You should not only be master of your own selves, but master of the circumstances of your life, the circumstances, at least, that immediately surround you and concern you. You must note further that it is an experience that is not confined to the mind alone: it need not happen in your head only, it may and indeed must continue into the body. Certainly, this is a realisation needing great labour, much concentration and self-mastery: you have to force the consciousness into the body, into dense Matter. It is the attitude of the body that will in the end determine everything: shocks and contacts of the outside world will change its nature according to the way in which they are received by the body. And if you attain perfection in that line, you can become even master of accidents. Such a thing is possible, not only possible, but it is bound to happen, for it is a forward step in man's progress. First of all, you have to realise the power in your mind to the extent that it can act upon circumstances and change their effect upon you. Then the power can descend into Matter, into the Substance, the cells of your body and endow the body with this capacity of control over things outside and around you.
There is nothing impossible in the world. We ourselves put the bar: always we say, this is possible, that is impossible, one can do this, one cannot do that. Sometimes we admit a thing to be possible but ask who would do it, so it is impossible and so on. Like slaves, like prisoners we bind ourselves to our limits. You call it common sense, but it is a stupid, narrow and ignorant sense; it does not truly know the laws of life. The laws of life are not what we think them to be, what our mind or intellect conceives them to be; they are quite otherwise.
07.38 - Past Lives and the Psychic Being, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is a being who is completely identified with his psychic, who has organised his whole person, in all its parts, around this centre, in fact, a being of one piece, entirely and solely turned to the Divine that can alone remember or hold in his consciousness something like a totality of his personal history. For in his case even when the body drops, the other parts being integrated and taken up into the soul Substance maintain their individual existence; the personality formed around the psychic continues to exist with its memory intact: even it can pass from one life to another without losing the consciousness.
A psychic memory has a very definite character; it has a wonderful intensity. It stores the unforgettable moments of life, those when the consciousness was most luminous, most powerful, most active. They are the happiest and the most fortunate moments of life. But they cannot be spoken about.
08.05 - Will and Desire, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When you have the will, it means you have the capacity of the stained effort for a definite end. A desire, on the contrary, is something violent, passionate and momentary; it is very rarely a durable thing. It has not the stuff, the Substance and organisation of a sustained effort. When desire gets hold of you, it can make you do anything, but in a fit of impulse, not in a methodical and consistent manner.
Why do children have the habit of always asking for thingsmaterial objects, I mean?
08.09 - Spirits in Trees, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yes, but that was in the story. It was a Christian legend and put in that way to illustrate a lesson. It was to show that if you are wicked you suffer even after death, that it is a virtuous life that saves you from misery. In reality, however, there is no question here of sin and punishment, it is not that spirits get attached to trees in order to be punished. When a person dies, his vital being leaves the body and goes out; but it finds itself in unfamiliar and inhospitable surroundings, especially if there is no one, none among his friends and relatives upon earth, to help him in the proper way, to guide or protect him in the new country where there are hostile beings to harm. In such a situation a tree is often a very ready shelter, a big old tree with friendly branches spread out, possessing a strong vitality. It is the sap, the elements of water coursing in the Substance of the tree, that is to say, the support of its life-power, to which the vital being of the dead man is drawn as its physical support and shelter. There is no question of forced imprisonment and a desire to be freed.
Are they not harmful, these spirits?
09.04 - The Divine Grace, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This power some have, fully developed and realised in the mind, the power, namely, to act upon the outer circumstances so that they are altogether changed when they act upon you. This power can come down into matter, into the physical Substance itself, in the cells of the body and give to the body the same control over surrounding things. That is sure to come. This opens before you fresh horizons; it is one step on the way towards transformation.
If you are truly in a state of intense aspiration there is no circumstance that will not serve to help you in the realisation of your aspiration. All will come to help you, as if it were the perfect and absolute Consciousness that organised all things around you.
09.05 - The Story of Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is this marvellous state that we wish to realise upon earth. It is this that will be able to transform the world, make of it a dwelling place worthy of the divine Presence. And then only Love, true and pure, will incarnate in a body that will no longer be a disguise or a veil. That is why no effort is too arduous, no austerity too rigorous to illumine, perfect, transform the physical Substance so that it no more hides the Divine, when the Divine takes an external form through Love. For, then there will be freely manifested in the world that marvellous divine Kindness that can change life into a paradise of the sweetest delight.
The Divine Love is there with all its intensity, with all its tremendous power. But most people do not feel anything. What they feel is exactly proportionate to what they are and what they are capable of receiving.
09.09 - The Origin, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
You represent a little mass of agglomerate Substance that forms your self. Enter into that and find the key. You cannot say: "That is beyond me, that is too great for me." Go within the little person and you will find the key that opens all the doors.
You are That, you are in That.
09.10 - The Supramental Vision, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To live totally in the supramental knowledge, one must have other means of expression than those available at present. New modes of expression have to be developed for expressing supra mental things in a supramental way. At present we have to raise our mental faculty to its maximum, to a sort of frontier that is hardly visible and which yet exists; for our means of expression still belong to this mental world and they do not possess supramental power. We do not have the necessary organs. We must become beings of the supramental world, with a supramental Substance, a supramental inner organisation, to express the supramental knowledge in a supramental way. Till now we could, in some part of our consciousness, come out wholly into the supramental vision and knowledge, but could not express it from there. We had to come, as I say, one plane lower down to be able to express ourselves.
That is how this veil is transparent to the consciousness, for the consciousness sees and knows things in a supramental way, but a part remains veiled and comes out only progressively, for it has not the means to do otherwise.
100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
harmonic resonances of complex chemical liquid Substances.
Aural:
--
lines. "Lines" became the one-dimensional, Substanceless "logs" that they floored
together in their two-dimensional, planar, thicklessness "rafts." Finally they
--
a Substance having "insideness and outsideness." The smallest thing we
know of __ the atom __ has a withinness nucleus and one or more withoutness
--
because the absence for more than a minute or so of oxygen (the Substance
humans use the most) could not be tolerated, nature provided the air everywhere
10.01 - Cycles of Creation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present cycle, the great cycle that is to say, has, as I have said, for its ultimate motive and purpose the advent and reign of the Supermind. But this proceeds through stages, each stage forming a minor or lesser cycle. The stages of these cycles are the different degrees of what is called evolution. The evolution starts upon the basis of an apparently simple Substance and goes on unfolding gradually an inherent complexity. As we know, the different cycles of evolution in the past were at the outset a purely material universe of inorganic elements, then came the cycle of organic combinations, then the manifestation of life and next the mind and at present the mind at its peak capacity, which means the advent of the strange creature that has a miraculous destiny to accomplish. And that is to bring forth out of him the achievement and fulfilment of the next cycle. For the mind is there to bring forth, to usher in the Supermind and man is there as the laboratory and the vanguard as well of the Supermind.
At the present time the human consciousness in general has been so prepared and its dwelling and playfield the earth consciousness made ready to such a degree that it has been possible for the still secreted higher perfection to enter into the arena. The evolution, the growth has been a gradual expression and revelation of the light, the consciousness in a higher and higher degree of purity and potency through an encasement hard and resistant at first but gradually yielding to the impact of the higher status and even transforming itself so as to become its instrument and embodiment. We speak of the present situation, we are concerned with man and what he is to grow into or bring out of himself. Here also there seem to be stages or cycles of creation leading to the final achievement. The whole burden of the present endeavour is how to transcend, transform or modify the animalhood which is the basis of humanity even now and in and through which man is growing and seeking to manifest and incarnate his superior potencies. Man's supramental destiny means that he totally outgrows the animal, outgrows even his manhood in so far as it is merely human; for he has to incorporate the principle of the supramental which wholly transcends the mental.
10.02 - The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A cheat of Substance where no Substance is,
An appearance and a symbol and a nought,
10.03 - Life in and Through Death, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The gold is there, the purest gold, but it is crusted over with dross. The dross is to be eliminated and the noble metal freed. Indeed each element of the being wherever and whatever it is, each corpuscle, mental, vital or physical is ambivalentit is a polarised entity consisting of two parts or two ends, one pure, the other impure. The ancients thought that the whole creation is impure; the only pure Substance is the Divine. The Sankhya posited clearly the demarcation between Purusha, the Conscious Being secreted above and behind and the entire Prakriti which is absolute unconsciousness. But as we have said, a new revelation has been slowly coming up which speaks of a different conclusion 'and a different destiny for man and the universe. Each element of the created universe has a double nature, it is both conscious and unconscious, it is both immortal and mortal. And furthermore, the two are not united or soldered together inextricably so that if one is eliminated the other gets eliminated automatically. Life and death appear to be bound together absolutely and eternally; in fact, however, it is not so. Even in life, Life can be established in its single pure reality free from the normal counterpoint of Death. Purusha is not the only conscious element in or above creation. Prakriti is not merely the unconscious being. The unconscious Prakriti is only the apparent aspect of the Higher Prakriti, the Para Prakriti, which is supremely conscious, for it is one with the Supreme Purusha.
This Higher Prakriti is the inner reality of each created cell of the universe. And it is always insisting and working for the elimination of its counterpart, the inferior Prakriti; and evolution, human or cosmic is nothing but the gradual corroding of the inferior Prakriti by the pressure of the Light-Energy of the Higher Prakriti. One day when this lower Prakriti is dissolved in this way in each cell, the fullness of the radiant manifestation, an embodiment of the Divine Reality will be realised upon this material earth made spiritual, in this human body made Divine.
10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A senseless Substance quivered into sense,
The world's heart commenced to beat, its eyes to see,
10.04 - The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of Being a Substance nescient, dense and dumb,
Of Bliss the beauty of an insentient world.
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Its Substance a pure gold ever the same
But shaped into vessels for the spirit's use,
10.04 - Transfiguration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As of the Brahman, even so of the Brahman's qualities. They are various aspects, living aspects or personalities of the One Divine. The Vedas therefore consider them as Gods and Goddesses and give each one a name and a form. They are adored and worshipped as such so that they may enter into the worshipper and transmute him into something of His image. The Gods bring riches to man. But these riches are they themselves. Vasu is the richness of their Substance, Ratna is the wealth of their delight.
Agni is the energy of consciousness, Varuna is the vastness of consciousness, Mitra is the harmony. Ila is the revelation, Saraswati inspiration, Bharati is the Goddess of the Divine Word.
1.009 - Perception and Reality, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Thus arises the need to be cautious in the adjustment of the mind and the judgement of values in life. The sutras of Patanjali that I referred to give only a hint, and do not enter into details the hint being that the vrittis or the modifications of the mind are of a twofold character, which I translated as determinate and indeterminate, and have to be gradually controlled. This control of the vrittis or the modifications of the mind is regarded as yoga: yoga citta vtti nirodha (I.2). Yoga is the control of the modifications of 'the stuff' of the mind, the very Substance of psychological action. Not merely the external modifications, but the very 'stuff' of it, the very root of it, has to be controlled, and this is done in and by successive stages. We have always to move from the effect to the cause in the manner indicated in this analysis that we have made.
Ultimately it comes to this, that our perceptions are our problems. They become a problem because we pass judgements on these perceptions. Mere perceptions as they are, left alone to themselves, would be a different matter altogether. But we do not simply perceive an object and keep quiet. The moment we perceive something, we pass a judgement on it. "Oh, this is something. This is a snake." This is a perception. "Oh, it is dangerous." This is a judgement. "I have to run away from it." This is another judgement. "This is a mango." This is one judgement. "It is very sweet." This is a second judgement. "I must eat it." This is a third judgement. We go on passing judgement after judgement of various complex characters on an object of perception. So, judgements become subsequent effects of the perception of an object.
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
From the very use of the term "sheath" it will be noted that we are considering those fires which manifest through the medium of those externalities, of those veils of Substance which hide and conceal the inner Reality. We shall not here take up the subject of the sheaths on the higher planes, but simply deal with the fires that animate the three lower vehicles,the physical body in its two divisions (etheric and dense), the emotional or astral body, and the mental sheath. It is frequently overlooked by the casual student that both the astral and the mental bodies are material, and just as material in their own way, as is the dense physical body, and also that the Substance of which they are composed is animated by a triple fire, as is the physical.
In the physical body we have the fires of the lower nature (the animal plane) centralised at the base of the spine. They are situated at a spot which stands in relation to the physical body as the physical sun to the solar system. This central point of heat radiates in all directions, using the spinal column as its main artery, but working in close connection with certain central ganglia, wherever located, and having a special association with the spleen.
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1. The akasha, itself vitalised matter, or Substance animated by latent heat.
2. Electricity, Substance of one polarity, and energised by one of the three aspects logoic. To express it more occultly, Substance showing forth the quality of the cosmic Lord Whose energy it is.
3. Light Rays of pranic aspect, some of which are being now recognised by the modern scientist. They are but aspects of the latent heat of the sun as it approaches the Earth by a particular line of least resistance.
When the term "channel or ray of approach" is used, it means approach from the centre of solar radiation to the periphery. What is encountered during that approachsuch as planetary bodies, for instancewill be affected by the akashic current, the electrical current, or the pranic current in some way, but all of these currents are only the internal fires of the system when viewed from some other point in universal, though not solar, space. It is, therefore, obvious that this matter of fire is as complex as that of the rays. The internal fires of the solar system become external and radiatory when considered from the standpoint of a planet, while the internal fires of the planet will affect a human being as radiation in exactly the same way as the pranic emanations of his etheric body affect another physical body as radiatory. The point to be grasped in all these [60] aspects is that one and all have to do with matter or Substance, and not with mind or Spirit.
b. The Planet. Deep in the heart of the planetsuch a planet as the Earth, for instanceare the internal fires that occupy the central sphere, or the caverns whichfilled with incandescent burningmake life upon the globe possible at all. The internal fires of the moon are practically burnt out, and, therefore, she does not shine save through reflection, having no inner fire to blend and merge with light external. These inner fires of the earth can be seen functioning, as in the sun, through three main channels:
1. Productive Substance, or the matter of the planet vitalised by heat. This heat and matter together act as the mother of all that germinates, and as the protector of all that dwells therein and thereon. This corresponds to the akasha, the active vitalised matter of the solar system, that nourishes all as does a mother.
2. Electrical fluid, a fluid which is latent in the planet though as yet but little recognized. It is perhaps better expressed by the term "animal magnetism." It is the distinctive quality of the atmosphere of a planet, or its electrical ring-pass-not. It is the opposite pole to the solar electrical fluid, and the contact of the two and their correct manipulation is the aimperhaps unrealisedof all scientific endeavor at this time.
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1. Bodily warmth, the channel along which the heat radiates and which finds the goal of its attention to be the heating of the corporeal frame. This vitalisation of the dense matter of the body finds its correspondence in the systemic akasha, and in planetary productive Substance.
2. Nervous response. This is the vitalising tenuous fluid which applies itself to the stimulation of the nervous centres, and which creates electrical response to contact between the nerves and the brain. It should now be more closely studied. It corresponds to systemic electricity, and to planetary electricity.
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It might be wise here to point out that this triple manifestation of fire demonstrates in the astral and mental bodies likewise, having to do with the Substance of those bodies. We might express this fire in its triple manifestation as the sumtotal of the essential fire, or life activity of the third Logos. It should be carefully borne [62] in mind that the manifestation of the work of the three Logoi is the expression of the mind of some cosmic Entity. In the same way, the seven planetary Entities, the seven Heavenly Men, are seven Logoi (likewise cosmic Beings) Who in Their totality form the Body of the threefold Logos. We have, therefore:
1. The undifferentiated Logosa cosmic Entity.
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The Lord of Cosmic Love now seeks union with His Brother, and, in point of time, embodies all the Present. He is the sumtotal of all that is embodied; He is conscious Existence. He is the Son divine and His life and nature evolve through every existent form. The Lord of Cosmic Will holds hid the future within His plans and consciousness. They are all three the Sons of one Father, all three the aspects of the One God, all three are Spirit, all three are Soul, and all three are Rays emanating from one cosmic centre. All three are Substance, but in the past one Lord was the elder Son, in the present another Lord comes to the fore, and in the future still another. But this is so only in Time. From the standpoint of the Eternal Now, none is greater nor less than another, for the last shall be first, and the first last. Out of manifestation time is not, and freed from objectivity states of consciousness are not.
The fire of Spirit is the essential fire of the first Lord of Will plus the fire of the second Logos of Love. These two cosmic Entities blend, merge, and demonstrate as Soul, utilising for purposes of manifestation the aid of the third Logos. The three fires blend and merge. In this fourth round and on this fourth globe of our planetary scheme, the fires of the third Logos of intelligent matter are fusing somewhat with the fires of cosmic [64] mind, showing as will or power, and animating the Thinker on all planes. The object of Their co-operation is the perfected manifestation of the cosmic Lord of Love. This should be pondered upon for it reveals a mystery.
1.00b - DIVISION B - THE PERSONALITY RAY AND FIRE BY FRICTION, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
At this point in the treatise we are confining our attention to the Ray of Active Matter, or to that latent heat in Substance which underlies its activity and is the cause of its motion. If we think with sincerity and with clarity we will see how closely therefore the Lipika Lords or the Lords of Karma are associated with this work. Three of Them are closely connected with Karma as it concerns one or other of the three great Rays, or the three FIRES, while the fourth Lipika Lord synthesizes the work of his three Brothers and attends to the uniform blending and merging of the three fires. On our planet, the Earth, They find Their points of contact through the three "Buddhas of Activity," [xxx]30 (the correspondence should be noted here) and the fourth Kumara, the Lord of the World. Therefore, we arrive at the realisation that the personality Ray, in its relation to the fire of matter, is directly influenced and adjusted in its working by one of the Buddhas of Activity.
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1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Second. In the study of the etheric body and prana lies the revelation of the effects of those rays of the sun which (for lack of better expression), we will call "solar pranic emanations." These solar pranic emanations are the produced effect of the central heat of the sun approaching other bodies within the solar system by one of the three main channels of contact, and producing on the bodies then contacted certain effects differing somewhat from those produced by the other emanations. These effects might be considered as definitely stimulating and constructive, and (through their essential quality) as producing conditions that further the growth of cellular matter, and concern its adjustment to environing conditions; they concern likewise the internal health (demonstrating as the heat of the atom and its consequent activity) and the uniform evolution of the form of which that particular atom of matter forms a constituent part. Emanative prana does little in connection with [79] form building; that is not its province, but it conserves the form through the preservation of the health of its component parts. Other rays of the sun act differently, upon the forms and upon their Substance. Some perform the work of the Destroyer of forms, and others carry on the work of cohering and of attracting; the work of the Destroyer and of the Preserver is carried on under the Law of Attraction and Repulsion. Some rays definitely produce accelerated motion, others produce retardation. The ones we are dealing with herepranic solar emanationswork within the four ethers, that matter which (though physical) is not as yet objectively visible to the eye of man. They are the basis of all physical plane life considered solely in connection with the life of the physical plane atoms of matter, their inherent heat and their rotary motion. These emanations are the basis of that "fire by friction" which demonstrates in the activity of matter.
Finally, in the study of the etheric body and prana comes comprehension of the method of logoic manifestation, and therefore much of interest to the metaphysician, and all abstract thinkers. The etheric body of man holds hid the secret of his objectivity. It has its correspondence on the archetypal plane,the plane we call that of the divine manifestation, the first plane of our solar system, the plane Adi. The matter of that highest plane is called often the "sea of fire" and it is the root of the akasha, the term applied to the Substance of the second plane of manifestation. Let us trace the analogy a little more in detail, for in its just apprehension will be found much of illumination and much that will serve to elucidate problems both macrocosmic and microcosmic. We will begin with man and his etheric body.
The etheric body has been described as a network, permeated with fire, or as a web, animated with golden light. It is spoken of in the Bible as the "golden bowl." [80] It is a composition of that matter of the physical plane which we call etheric, and its shape is brought about by the fine interlacing strands of this matter being built by the action of the lesser Builders into the form or mould upon which later the dense physical body can be moulded. Under the Law of Attraction, the denser matter of the physical plane is made to cohere to this vitalised form, and is gradually built up around it, and within it, until the interpenetration is so complete that the two forms make but one unit; the pranic emanations of the etheric body itself play upon the dense physical body in the same manner as the pranic emanations of the sun play upon the etheric body. It is all one vast system of transmission and of interdependence within the system. All receive in order to give, and to pass on to that which is lesser or not so evolved. Upon every plane this process can be seen.
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Planetary emanative prana (as in the case of solar prana) is caught up and transmitted via a particular group of devas, called the "devas of the shadows," who are ethereal devas of a slightly violet hue. Their bodies are composed of the matter of one or other of the four ethers, and they focalise and concentrate the emanations of the planet, and of all forms upon the planet. They have a specially close connection with human beings owing to the fact of the essential resemblance of their bodily Substance to man's etheric Substance, and because they transmit to him the magnetism of "Mother Earth" as it is called. Therefore we see that there are two groups of devas working in connection with man:
a. Solar devas, who transmit the vital fluid which circulates in the etheric body.
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There is also the still simpler form embodied in the Substance of which all the other forms are made. This matter is strictly speaking the atomic and molecular matter, and is animated by the life or energy of the third Logos.
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d. These major seven planes of our solar system being but the seven subplanes of the cosmic physical plane, we can consequently see the reason for the emphasis laid by H. P. B. [liv]52, [lv]53 upon the fact that matter and ether are synonymous terms and that this ether is found in some form or other on all the planes, and is but a gradation of cosmic atomic matter, called when undifferentiated mulaprakriti or primordial pre-genetic Substance, and when differentiated by Fohat (or the energising Life, the third Logos or Brahma) it is termed prakriti, or matter. [lvi]54
e. Our solar system is what is called a system of the fourth order; that is, it has its location on the fourth cosmic etheric plane, counting, as always, from above downwards.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
2. Momentum, resulting therefore in repulsion, was produced by the rotary movement. We have referred to the Law of Repulsion as one of the subsidiary branches of the great Law of Economy, which governs matter. Repulsion is brought about by rotary action, and is the basis of that separation which prevents the contact of any atom with any other atom, which keeps the planets at fixed points in space and separated stably from each other; which keeps them at a certain distance from their systemic centre, and which likewise keeps the planes and subplanes from losing their material identity. Here we can see the beginning of that age-long duel between Spirit and matter, which is characteristic of manifestation, one aspect working under the Law of Attraction, and the other governed by the Law of Repulsion. From aeon to aeon the conflict goes on, with matter becoming less potent. Gradually (so gradually as to seem negated when viewed from the physical plane) the attractive power of Spirit is weakening the resistance of matter till, at the close of the greater solar cycles, destruction (as it is called) will ensue, and the Law of Repulsion be overcome by the Law of Attraction. It is a destruction of form and not of matter itself, for matter is indestructible. This can be seen even now in the microcosmic life, and is the cause of the disintegration of form, which holds itself as a separated unit by the very method of repulsing all other forms. It can be seen working out gradually and inappreciably in connection with the Moon, which no longer is repulsive to the earth, and is giving of her very Substance to this planet. H. P. B. hints at this in The Secret Doctrine, and I have here suggested the law under which this is so. [lxxii]70, [lxxiii]71
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1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Second, as active heat. This results in the activity and the driving forward of material evolution. On the highest plane the combination of these three factors (active heat, latent heat and the primordial Substance which they animate) is known as the 'sea of fire,' of which akasha is the first differentiation of pregenetic matter. Akasha, in manifestation, expresses itself as Fohat, or divine Energy, and Fohat on the different planes is known as aether, air, fire, water, electricity, ether, prana and similar terms. [ix]9, [x]10, [xi]11 It is the sumtotal [44] of that which is active, animated, or vitalized, and of all that concerns itself with the adaptation of the form to the needs of the inner flame of life.
It might here be useful to point out that magnetism is the effect of the divine ray in manifestation in the same sense that electricity is the manifested effect of the primordial ray of active intelligence. It would be well to ponder on this for it holds hid a mystery.
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To continue our consideration of the fires which sustain the economy of the visible solar system, and of the visible objective human being, which produce evolutionary development, and which are the bases of all objective efflorescence, it must be noted that they demonstrate as the sumtotal of the vital life of a solar system, of a planet, of the entire constitution of active functioning man upon the physical plane, and of the atom of Substance.
Speaking broadly we would say that the first fire deals entirely with:
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The internal fire of matter is called in the Secret Doctrine "Fire by Friction." It is an effect and not a cause. It is produced by the two fires of spirit and of mind (electric and solar fire) contacting each other through the medium of matter. This energy demonstrates in [51] matter itself as the internal fires of the sun, and of the planets and finds a reflection in the internal fires of man. Man is the Flame Divine and the fire of Mind brought into contact through the medium of Substance or form. When evolution ends, the fire of matter is not cognisable. It persists only when the other two fires are associated, and it does not persist apart from Substance itself.
Let us now briefly recognise certain facts regarding fire in matter and let us take them in order, leaving time to elucidate their significance. First we might say that the internal fire being both latent and active, shows itself as the synthesis of the acknowledged fires of the system, and demonstrates, for instance, as solar radiation and inner planetary combustion. This subject has been somewhat covered by science, and is hidden in the mystery of physical plane electricity, which is an expression of the active internal fires of the system and of the planet just as inner combustion is an expression of the latent internal fires. These latter fires are to be found in the interior of each globe, and are the basis of all objective physical life.
1.00 - Main, #The Book of Certitude, #Baha u llah, #Baha i
How great the blessedness that awaiteth the king who will arise to aid My Cause in My kingdom, who will detach himself from all else but Me! Such a king is numbered with the companions of the Crimson Ark-the Ark which God hath prepared for the people of Baha. All must glorify his name, must reverence his station, and aid him to unlock the cities with the keys of My Name, the omnipotent Protector of all that inhabit the visible and invisible kingdoms. Such a king is the very eye of mankind, the luminous ornament on the brow of creation, the fountainhead of blessings unto the whole world. Offer up, O people of Baha, your Substance, nay your very lives, for his assistance.
85
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Gambling and the use of opium have been forbidden unto you. Eschew them both, O people, and be not of those who transgress. Beware of using any Substance that induceth sluggishness and torpor in the human temple and inflicteth harm upon the body. We, verily, desire for you naught save what shall profit you, and to this bear witness all created things, had ye but ears to hear.
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10.11 - Beyond Love and Hate, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The mother says Love and Hate are at bottom the same thing. At the centre there is the same Substance in both, it is the obverse and reverse of the same stuff. It is a vibration, it is a unique vibration, a vibration of extreme intensity, of extreme intimacy. At the centre there is this one single movement although at the periphery it becomes different, even contradictory. As the movement starts from the centre, and proceeds outward it differentiates itself, becomes more and more different, contrary, even contradictory to what it was at its origin. Hatred with all its most ugly features appears in the place of what was once a smiling beauty. Indeed, Love itself as we know it, as it is at the outside on the periphery, is equally a deformation and aberration like Hatred. Hatred kills but Love devours, vitally in man, literally in some of the lower species of animals. Human love and human hatred are both perversions, falsified expressions of another truth behind. It is human ignorance and prejudice that appreciates one and deprecates the other. Yet both have the same root, the flowering of the same seed or it is somewhat like the two opposite kinds of electricitypositive and negative. The two charges have opposite signs but they attract each other and although in the expression and action they are contradictory, they are both charges of electrical energy and therefore substantially they are one and the same.
We may extend this viewpoint and find the resolution of all contrariness and contradictoriness. Paradoxically one may say then all contradictions are an apparent illusion, all contradictions naturally and inevitably mean an inmost unity and identity. Even so the Brahman and the world or the Purusha and the Prakriti are apparent negations to each other, the duality is in the ordinary ignorant consciousness, but the two are one in the supreme indivisible consciousness.
1.012 - Sublimation - A Way to Reshuffle Thought, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Another way of dealing with a desire is substitution instead of giving it one thing, we give it another thing. If we have a craving to smoke a cigar, we drink a strong cup of coffee instead; some milder Substance is given. Or if a child is crying and throwing a tantrum, demanding a knife that we are holding, for good reason we will not give the knife to the child, so we will substitute another thing such as a sweetmeat or a toy for the knife, saying, "My dear child, this is not a good thing. I will give you something better." Instead of a knife, we give a toy. We substitute one thing for the other thing that was asked for. This is a better way, of course, than suppression, though it is not a complete solution. Merely because we have diverted the course of the river from one direction to another, it does not mean that the intensity of its flow has ceased.
The third way to handle desire, which is the only effective course, is sublimation. Sublimation is the only technique to be adopted. Sublimation means boiling, melting and transforming the desire into a new Substance altogether. The desire is no longer a desire; it has become something else. The shape of the desire has changed, and it has now become something quite different from what it was. This is the most difficult of all the techniques of self-control. The emotions are the motive power behind our thoughts, will and actions. Whatever we do is generally driven from behind by an emotion, like a dynamo, and this emotion is connected with desire. The desire is inseparable from an emotion. An emotion need not necessarily be a kind of upheaval of feeling. That upheaval is felt only when the desire is very intense. Otherwise, it is like a mild ripple on the surface of a lake. When it becomes very intense it is like a strong wave on the ocean, throwing everything hither and thither nevertheless, it is an emotion.
What is emotion? Now we come to another subject in psychology. An emotion is a wave in consciousness. As I mentioned, when it is mild, it is like a small ripple. When it is very strong, it is like a very turbulent wave of the Atlantic which can wash away things - even elephants can be drowned if the wave comes rising up with great power. A wave in consciousness is an emotion. And what is this wave? It is a tendency towards the achievement of an objective. This wave is a frequency, and a frequency of consciousness is the intensity of consciousness. This frequency or intensity of consciousness, which rises as a wave called an emotion, is directed towards an end, just as the waves in an ocean dash against the shore or against another wave. There is a push of the body of water in the ocean in a particular direction; that push is the cause of the wave, whatever be the reason behind the push. Some pressure is felt from inside, due to the wind or some other factor, so the wave is directed in some way. Likewise, the consciousness rises in a tempestuous mood like a wave, and that is an uncontrollable emotion. This tempest can do anything if it is uncontrolled.
10.12 - The Divine Grace and Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
But instead of giving any boon, any treasure physical or material or even spiritual, however precious, instead of giving anything the Divine may give Himself to one who approaches Him; then it becomes something more than the Grace, it is Love, the Divine's LoveHis own Self. It is His own Substance, His own delight of being that He gives, not anything external or extraneous. One remembers the story of Arjuna and Duryodhana. Duryodhana approached Krishna and thought the utmost, the best that he could secure from Krishna was Krishna's battalions, for that seemed to him the most precious gift of all, for that is the thing he would need most in the coming battle. Arjuna asked for nothing else but Krishna Himself.
Grace is of Maheshwari, that is to say, it is the special attribute, a particular emanation of her own self, it is a form of herself in an attitude that belongs particularly to her. Love is of Mahalaxmi it is her own special form and gesture. Or, varying the image we may say Grace is Shiva, the benign white radiance on the supreme heights enveloping the creation in its calm immutable compassion; while Krishna is Love, the immortal delight dwelling in the heart of mortality.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
dynamic Substance of knowledge. 7
Gnosis means knowledge, but of a special, higher kind:
1.01 - A NOTE ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
out limit has brought into being the realms of Substance and
essence. Our fathers supposed themselves to go back no further
1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The preoccupation of the Mystics was with self-knowledge and a profounder world-knowledge; they found out that in man there was a deeper self and inner being behind the surface of the outward physical man, which it was his highest business to discover and know. "Know thyself" was their great precept, just as in India to know the Self, the Atman became the great spiritual need, the highest thing for the human being. They found also a Truth, a Reality behind the outward aspects of the universe and to discover, follow, realise this Truth was their great aspiration. They discovered secrets and powers of Nature which were not those of the physical world but which could bring occult mastery over the physical world and physical things and to systematise this occult knowledge and power was also one of their strong preoccupations. But all this could only be safely done by a difficult and careful training, discipline, purification of the nature; it could not be done by the ordinary man. If men entered into these things without a severe test and training it would be dangerous to themselves and others; this knowledge, these powers could be misused, misinterpreted, turned from truth to falsehood, from good to evil. A strict secrecy was therefore maintained, the knowledge handed down behind a veil from master to disciple. A veil of symbols was created behind which these mysteries could shelter, formulas of speech also which could be understood by the initiated but were either not known by others or were taken by them in an outward sense which carefully covered their true meaning and secret. This was the Substance of Mysticism everywhere.
It has been the tradition in India from the earliest times that the Rishis, the poet-seers of the Veda, were men of this type, men with a great spiritual and occult knowledge not shared by ordinary human beings, men who handed down this knowledge and their powers by a secret initiation to their descendants and chosen disciples. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that this tradition was wholly unfounded, a superstition that arose suddenly or slowly formed in a void, with nothing whatever to support it; some foundation there must have been however small or however swelled by legend and the accretions of centuries. But if it is true, then inevitably the poet-seers must have expressed something of their secret knowledge, their mystic lore in their writings and such an element must be present, however well-concealed by an occult language or behind a technique of symbols, and if it is there it must be to some extent discoverable.
1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
development of the inner life. Spiritual science now also gives him practical rules by observing which he may tread that path and develop that inner life. These practical rules have no arbitrary origin. They rest upon ancient experience and ancient wisdom, and are given out in the same manner, wheresoever the ways to higher knowledge are indicated. All true teachers of the spiritual life are in agreement as to the Substance of these rules, even though they do not always clo the them in the same words. This difference, which is of a minor character and is more apparent than real, is due to circumstances which need not be dwelt upon here.
No teacher of the spiritual life wishes to establish a mastery over other persons by means of such rules. He would not tamper with anyone's independence. Indeed, none respect and cherish human independence more than the spiritually experienced. It was stated in the preceding pages that the bond of union embracing all initiates is spiritual, and that two laws form, as it were, clasps by which the component parts of this bond are held together. Whenever the initiate leaves
1.01 - Maitreya inquires of his teacher (Parashara), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Maitreya said, Master! I have been instructed by you in the whole of the Vedas, and in the institutes of law and of sacred science: through your favour, other men, even though they be my foes, cannot accuse me of having been remiss in the acquirement of knowledge. I am now desirous, oh thou who art profound in piety! to hear from thee, how this world was, and how in future it will be? what is its Substance, oh Brahman, and whence proceeded animate and inanimate things? into what has it been resolved, and into what will its dissolution again occur? how were the elements manifested? whence proceeded the gods and other beings? what are the situation and extent of the oceans and the mountains, the earth, the sun, and the planets? what are the families of the gods and others, the Menus, the periods called Manvantaras, those termed Kalpas, and their subdivisions, and the four ages: the events that happen at the close of a Kalpa, and the terminations of the several ages[11]: the histories, oh great Muni, of the gods, the sages, and kings; and how the Vedas were divided into branches (or schools), after they had been arranged by Vyāsa: the duties of the Brahmans, and the other tribes, as well as of those who pass through the different orders of life? All these things I wish to hear from you, grandson of Vaśiṣṭha. Incline thy thoughts benevolently towards me, that I may, through thy favour, be informed of all I desire to know. Parāśara replied, Well inquired, pious Maitreya. You recall to my recollection that which was of old narrated by my father's father, Vaśiṣṭha. I had heard that my father had been devoured by a Rākṣas employed by Visvāmitra: violent anger seized me, and I commenced a sacrifice for the destruction of the Rākṣasas: hundreds of them were reduced to ashes by the rite, when, as they were about to be entirely extirpated, my grandfather Vaśiṣṭha thus spake to me: Enough, my child; let thy wrath be appeased: the Rākṣasas are not culpable: thy father's death was the work of destiny. Anger is the passion of fools; it becometh not a wise man. By whom, it may be asked, is any one killed? Every man reaps the consequences of his own acts. Anger, my son, is the destruction of all that man obtains by arduous exertions, of fame, and of devout austerities; and prevents the attainment of heaven or of emancipation. The chief sages always shun wrath: he not thou, my child, subject to its influence. Let no more of these unoffending spirits of darkness be consumed. Mercy is the might of the righteous[12].
Being thus admonished by my venerable grandsire, I immediately desisted from the rite, in obedience to his injunctions, and Vaśiṣṭha, the most excellent of sages, was content with me. Then arrived Pulastya, the son of Brahmā[13], who was received by my grandfather with the customary marks of respect. The illustrious brother of Pulaha said to me; Since, in the violence of animosity, you have listened to the words of your progenitor, and have exercised clemency, therefore you shall become learned in every science: since you have forborne, even though incensed, to destroy my posterity, I will bestow upon you another boon, and, you shall become the author of a summary of the Purāṇas[14]; you shall know the true nature of the deities, as it really is; and, whether engaged in religious rites, or abstaining from their performance[15], your understanding, through my favour, shall be perfect, and exempt from). doubts. Then my grandsire Vaśiṣṭha added; Whatever has been said to thee by Pulastya, shall assuredly come to pass.
--
[16]: These are, in fact, the brief replies to Maitreya's six questions (p. 3), or, How was the world created? By Viṣṇu. How will it be? At the periods of dissolution it will be in Viṣṇu. Whence proceeded animate and inanimate things? From Viṣṇu. Of what is the Substance of the world? Viṣṇu. Into what has it been, and will it again he, resolved? Viṣṇu. He is therefore both the instrumental and material cause of the universe. 'The answer to the "whence" replies to the query as to the instrumental cause: "He is the world" replies to the inquiry as to the material cause.' 'And by this explanation of the agency of the materiality, &c. of Viṣṇu, as regards the universe, (it follows that) all will be produced from, and all will repose in him.' We have here precisely the τὸ πᾶν of the Orphic doctrines, and we might fancy that Brucker was translating a passage from a Purāṇa when he describes them in these words: "Continuisse Jovem (lege Viṣṇum) sive summum ortum in se omnia, omnibus ortum ex se dedisse, omnia ex se genuisse, et ex sua produxisse essentia. Spiritum esse universi qui omnia regit vivificat estque; ex quibus necessario sequitur omnia in eum reditura." Hist. Philos. I. 388. Jamblichus and Proclus also testify that the Pythagorean doctrines of the origin of the material world from the Deity, and its identity with him, were much the same. Cudworth, l. c. p. 348.
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
things, to the modern mind. The question of the nature of the Substance of sol the sun (to take a single
example) occupied the minds of those who practiced the pre-experimental science of alchemy for many
hundreds of years. We would no longer presume even that the sun has a uniform Substance, unique to it,
and would certainly take exception to the properties attri buted to this hypothetical element by the medieval
--
Sometimes the sun is an active Substance hidden in the gold and is extracted [alchemically] as the
tinctura rubea (red tincture). Sometimes, as the heavenly body, it is the possessor of magically effective
--
(the Cyprian, Venus), mentioned in Greek alchemy as the transformative Substance. Redness, heat, and
dryness are the classical qualities of the Egyptian Set (Greek Typhon), the evil principle which, like the
1.01 - MASTER AND DISCIPLE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"To meditate, you should withdraw within yourself or retire to a secluded corner or to the forest. And you should always discriminate between the Real and the unreal. God alone is real, the Eternal Substance; all else is unreal, that is, impermanent. By discriminating thus, one should shake off impermanent objects from the mind."
God and worldly duties
--
impermanent. God is the only Eternal Substance. What does a man get with money?
Food, clothes, and a dwelling-place - nothing more. You cannot realize God with its help. Therefore money can never be the goal of life. That is the process of discrimination. Do you understand?"
1.01 - NIGHT, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
How each the Whole its Substance gives,
Each in the other works and lives!
1.01 - On knowledge of the soul, and how knowledge of the soul is the key to the knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
Those also, who say that the spirit is but an accident, are in error, for the spirit exists by itself in the body, and an accident is that which subsists with something else. And those who say that the spirit is matter are in error, for matter is that which can be divided, and spirit is not susceptible of division. There is spirit, beloved, which is called animal spirit, which is susceptible of division. It is found in animals. But that spirit, which has the property of knowing God, and which is called the heart, is not found in beasts, nor is it matter or an accident. The heart, on the contrary, has been created with angelic qualities. It is a Substance of which it is difficult to apprehend the essence. The law does not permit it to be explained, but there is no occasion for the student being acquainted with it at the outset of his journey. That which is necessary to the student is pious ardor and zeal, and this must be called into exercise in perfection. It is God who graciously teaches the student what spirit is, as we find in the Holy Book: "We will direct in our way, all those who shall strive to propagate our worship."1 And if a man does not strive earnestly for the faith, there is no use of explaining to him the essence of spirit. It is, however, lawful to explain to him the instruments by which it operates.
Know, O seeker after the divine mysteries! that the body is the kingdom of the heart, and that in the body there are many forces in contrariety with the heart, as God speaks [18] in his Holy Word: "And what shall teach thee the forces of thy Lord ?" The heart was destined to acquire a knowledge of God, in which its happiness consists. But we cannot grow in the knowledge of God, unless we understand the works of God.
1.01 - The Divine and The Universe, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Essence on Substance, from the penetration, the permeation of quantity by quality, which brings about a constant and progressive organisation and reorganisation of the content of the universe.
24 March 1932
1.01 - THE OPPOSITES, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[3] Another favourite theriomorphic image is that of the two birds or two dragons, one of them winged, the other wingless. This allegory comes from an ancient text, De Chemia Senioris antiquissimi philosophi libellus.11 The wingless bird or dragon prevents the other from flying. They stand for Sol and Luna, brother and sister, who are united by means of the art.12 In Lambspringks Symbols13 they appear as the astrological Fishes which, swimming in opposite directions, symbolize the spirit / soul polarity. The water they swim in is mare nostrum (our sea) and is interpreted as the body.14 The fishes are without bones and cortex.15 From them is produced a mare immensum, which is the aqua permanens (permanent water). Another symbol is the stag and unicorn meeting in the forest.16 The stag signifies the soul, the unicorn spirit, and the forest the body. The next two pictures in Lambspringks Symbols show the lion and lioness,17 or the wolf and dog, the latter two fighting; they too symbolize soul and spirit. In Figure VII the opposites are symbolized by two birds in a wood, one fledged, the other unfledged. Whereas in the earlier pictures the conflict seems to be between spirit and soul, the two birds signify the conflict between spirit and body, and in Figure VIII the two birds fighting do in fact represent that conflict, as the caption shows. The opposition between spirit and soul is due to the latter having a very fine Substance. It is more akin to the hylical body and is densior et crassior (denser and grosser) than the spirit.
[4] The elevation of the human figure to a king or a divinity, and on the other hand its representation in subhuman, theriomorphic form, are indications of the transconscious character of the pairs of opposites. They do not belong to the ego-personality but are supraordinate to it. The ego-personality occupies an intermediate position, like the anima inter bona et mala sita (soul placed between good and evil). The pairs of opposites constitute the phenomenology of the paradoxical self, mans totality. That is why their symbolism makes use of cosmic expressions like coelum / terra.18 The intensity of the conflict is expressed in symbols like fire and water,19 height and depth,20 life and death.21
1.01 - THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
reducible in the end to some simple and unique kind of Substance.
Thus the unity of homogeneity. To the cosmic corpuscles we
--
sudden condensation (as in a saturated environment) of a primordial Substance
or stuff", diffused throughout limitless space. Nowadays, for various convergent
1.01 - The Unexpected, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The next step was to plaster the leg. Dr. Rao, a friend of the sadhak Duraiswamy and Superintendant of Cuddalore hospital, was sent for, since the local hospital might not have been able to give us the necessary equipment. Purani brought the plaster of Paris from the Government Pharmacy. At last the injured leg was put in a cast as a first aid. The next move was to take the Lord to his bed. We found it quite a job to carry him in spite of our having three muscular figures amongst us, Purani, Champaklal and Satyendra. His physical frame had considerable weight like the spiritual Substance it enshrined.
Already two hours had passed and the news had flown all over the Ashram a real bolt from the blue. All hopes and aspirations of hundreds of people were set at naught by this single blow. They gathered in the courtyard of the Ashram to know the truth and went back sullen-hearted with a fervent prayer addressed to the Mother and the Lord for his speedy recovery. Miss Wilson accepted Fate's decree with a calm submission. The Mother, out of compassion for the disappointed devotees, gave darshan to all in the evening. Thus she wiped away their gloom with the sunshine of her smile and the power of her touch.
1.020 - The World and Our World, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
But Ishvara srishti is pure existence of things. A lump of gold is a lump of gold; but, that it is a valuable Substance, that it has great worth and, therefore, can be taken away or stolen these ideas are projections of the mind of the individual. So in the perception of any given object, two factors are supposed to be involved jiva shrishti and Ishvara srishti. This is a conclusion safely arrived at to obviate any kind of extreme position that people generally take, either from the objective side or from the subjective side.
There are those who think that the object alone is real and the mind is only a stupid something, which merely reflects the nature of an object as it is. This is the realistic, materialistic attitude. They do not give any place for mind in the scheme of things. It is only a kind of exudation of material existences. This is one extreme view - where the objective world alone is the determining factor of every situation in life, and the mind has no place in the scheme of things. The other extreme is that the mind alone is the determining factor of everything and the object has no place in the scheme of things everything is on account of our thought. This is the extreme idealistic point of view, contrary to the extreme materialistic point of view of certain others. The via-media, the middle course, would be that both contri bute a percentage of meaning in the perception of objects. And so the act of mind-control, the restraining of the modifications of the mind, would not mean an abolition of the existence of objects at least according to thinkers such as the author of the Panchadasi - but is a withdrawal of those special modifications of the mind, on account of which the mind reads particular subjective meanings in objects.
--
The difficulty is simply because the mind cannot think both ways, and the truth lies neither on this side nor on that side. The isolation of the individual from its relationship with the pattern of things is the cause of its difficulty in understanding anything. The whole universe is an organic structure in which the percipient is included as a vital part. For instance, we cannot study the nature of the heart of a human being by removing it from the body. Though it is a fleshy Substance and can be examined pathologically, medically, etc., studying it like this would be meaningless because the moment the heart is removed from the body it ceases to be a heart and becomes only a lump of flesh. The heart has to be studied in its connection with the body in its working condition, and not by isolating it from the organic relationship it has with the body.
Likewise, we should not wrest the object from its connectedness with things in our perception, which is another way of judging it. A similar mistake has been committed by us we have wrested ourselves away from things. We have stood outside the scheme of things in our judgement of values, while we are already a part of the scheme of things. All perceptions, judgements and evaluations become inscrutable mysteries on account of this initial difficulty that has been created, namely, a separation of the percipient from the object with which it is organically connected, basically. For instance, a finger of the hand becomes aware of another finger of the same hand. If we were to take for granted that a particular finger of a hand has a consciousness of its own, and we conclude that it can perceive the existence of another finger of the same hand what would be its attitude? What would be the real relationship between one finger and another finger, given that one finger can see another finger outside it? We know that one finger is different from another finger. But the consciousness of one finger in respect of another finger would be charged with its basic awareness of its connectedness with the whole body, which it cannot look upon as an external object, so that even the other finger which it perceives cannot be called as a real external object, though it is an object for all practical purposes because it can be seen.
1.02.2.1 - Brahman - Oneness of God and the World, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
constant changeableness of physical Substance. Sat is the divine
counterpart of physical Substance.
Chit-Tapas is pure energy of Consciousness, free in its rest
--
dynamic energies of Prana which, feeding upon physical Substances, are dependent on and limited by their sustenance.5 Tapas
is the divine counterpart of this lower nervous or vital energy.
--
5 Therefore physical Substance is called in the Upanishads Annam, Food. In its origin,
however, the word meant simply being or Substance.
6 Not the abstract mental idea, but the supramental Real-Idea, the Consciousness,
1.02.2.2 - Self-Realisation, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
play of Life, Life a play of Mind energising itself in Substance,
Mind a play of Truth or causal Idea representing truth of being
1.02.3.1 - The Lord, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
into Being, that is to say, into Person and Substance. But Love is
incomplete without a Lover and an object of Love, Knowledge
--
Worker and a Work, Substance without a Person cognizing and
constituting it.
10.23 - Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
En dehors de cet tal, il y a des degrs infinis ,de conscience descendant jusqu', l' obscurit complte, la vritable inconscience qui peut tre un domaine pas encore touch par la lumire de ton amour (ce qui parat improbable dans la Substance physique), ou bien ce qui est, pour une raison d'ignorance quelconque, hors de notre rgion individuelle de perception.3
However, we note that the philosophical strain merges into the yogic, rather the yogic strain is already involved in the philosophical. Here is an obvious and clear expression of this strain:
--
Outside this state, there are infinite degrees of consciousness descending down to the complete darkness, the veritable inconscience which may be a domain not yet touched by the light of Thy divine love (but that appears improbable in physical Substance), or which is by reason of some ignorance, outside our individual region of perception.
Each day, each moment, must be an occasion for a new and completer consecration; and not one of those enthusiastic and trepidant consecrations, overactive, full of the illusion of the work, but a profound and silent consecration which need not be apparent, but which penetrates and transfigures every action. Our mind, solitary and at peace, must rest always in Thee, and from this pure summit it must have the exact perception of realities, of the sole and eternal Reality, behind unstable fugitive appearances.
1.02.4.1 - The Worlds - Surya, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Tapas dwells upon Matter as its basis. Our consciousness is determined by the divisibility of extended Substance in its apparent
forms. This is Bhurloka, the material world, the world of formal
1.024 - Affiliation With Larger Wholes, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Among the many recipes that Sage Patanjali prescribes in his system of yoga for the control of the mind, a masterstroke is given in a single aphorism as a prescription for every type of mental modification when he says, tatpratiedhrtham ekatattv abhysa (I.32): The practice of one reality checks the movement of the mind. It means that the movement of the mind is due to its weddedness to various realities, and not to one reality. Ekatattva is one truth, one being, one Substance, one reality anything that is single and comprehensive. The practice of one reality is the ultimate remedy for all psychological modifications. But, as far as the human mind is concerned, there is no such thing as one reality. The human mind sees many realities and, therefore, it has manifold approaches to the various forms of reality which it sees in the world.
The mind moves only to realities, and never to unrealities. There is no such thing as the mind getting attracted to unreal things. Anything that it considers to be real becomes the object of its consideration and action. The subsequent transcendence of a particular concept of reality does not in any way affect the mind from getting interested in whatever level of reality it considers valuable at a given moment in time. In every stage of life the mind is confronted only by realities, because should it be convinced that its perceptions or cognitions are unreal, it will not bother itself about them. A reality is that which can fulfil a particular need at a given time; whether or not it is is ultimately real is a different question altogether. A thing may not be ultimately real, and yet it may be real enough to satisfy a particular requisition of the mind under a given condition.
10.24 - Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ashwapati veers round. A new perception, a new consciousness begins to open within him. A new urge moves him. He has to start on a new journey, a new quest and achievement. The world exists neither as a Truth nor as an illusion in itself. It exists in and through the Mother of the worlds. There is a motive in its existence and it is her will that is being worked out in that existence. The world moves for the fulfilment of a purpose that is being evolved through earth-life and humanlife. The ignorant incomplete human life upon earth is not the be-all and end-all of the life here. That life has to evolve into a life of light and love and joy perfect here below. Nature as it is now will be transmuted into a new pure and radiant Substance. Ashwapati is filled with this new urge and inspiredby this new vision. He sees and understands now the truth of his life, the goal that has to be achieved, the great dream that has to be realised here upon earth in and through matter. He sees how nature has been labouring ceaselessly and tirelessly through aeons through eternity onward. He is now almost impatient to see the consummation here and now. The divine Voice however shows him the wisdom of working patiently, hastening slowly. The Voice admonishes him:
I ask thee not to merge thy heart of flame
--
Mans refusal of the Divine Grace has been depicted very beautifully and graphically in a perfect dramatic form by Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. The refusal comes one by one from the three constituent parts of the human being. First of all man is a material being, a bodily creature, as such he is a being of ignorance and misery, of brutish blindness. He does not know that there is something other than his present state of misfortune and dark fate. He is not even aware that there may be anything higher or nobler than the ugliness he is steeped in. He lives on earth-life with an earth-consciousness, moves mechanically and helplessly through vicissitudes over which he has no control. Even so the material life is not a mere despicable thing; behind its darkness, behind its sadness, behind all its infirmities, the Divine Mother is there upholding it and infusing into it her grace and beauty. Indeed, she is one with this world of sorrows, she has in effect become it in her infinite pity and love so that this material body of hers may become conscious of its divine Substance and manifest her true form. But the human being individualised and separated in egoistic consciousness has lost the sense of its inner reality and is vocal only in regard to its outward formulation. It is natural for physical man therefore to reject and deny the physical Godhead in him, he even curses it and wants to continue as he is. He yells therefore in ignorance and anguish:
I am the Man of Sorrows, I am he
--
But there are intermediaries. The fullness of the realisation depends on the fullness of the incarnation. The Evil in the body, the Evil in the vital, the Evil in the mind are, whatever their virulence and intransigence, subsidiary agents, for they serve only a mightier Lord. The first original Sin is Death, the God of Denial, of non-existence. That is the very sourcefons et origo the fount and origin of all the misfortune, the fate that terrestrial life involves. This demon, this anti-Divine has to be tracked and destroyed or dissolved into its original origin. This is the Nihil that negates the DivineAsat that seeks to nullify Sat and that has created this world of ignorance and misery, that is to say, in its outward pragmatic form. So Savitri sees the one source and knows the remedy. Therefore she pursues death, pursues him to the end, that is, to the end of death. The luminous energy of the Supreme faces now its own shadow and blazes it up. The flaming Light corrodes into the Substance of the darkness and makes of it her own transfigured Substance. This then is the gift that Savitri brings to man, the Divine's own immortality, transfusing the mortality that reigns now upon earth.
In view of the necessity of the age, for the crucial, critical and, in a way, final consummation of Nature's evolutionary urge, the Divine Himself has to come down in the fullness of His divinity; for only then can the earth be radically changed and wholly transformed. In the beginning the Divine once came down, but by sacrificing Himself, being pulverised, scattered and lost in the infinitesimals of a universal, material, unconsciousness. Once again He has to come down, but this time in the supreme glory of His victorious Luminosity.
10.25 - How to Read Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Do we read for the sake of study? to know things? to acquire knowledge? That is a secondary aspect, a profit gained by the way. The real purpose of coming in contact with the words of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is to become conscious, to acquire consciousness, to be more and more conscious, increase more and more the consciousness. To understand, that is to say, to seize by the mind, to grasp intellectually the writings of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is rather difficult. The easier, the more right way would be to enter into the atmosphere of the world that they have created with their words, to feel the vibration that the words emanate. For the words that they have uttered are not mere words taken or found in the dictionaries, they are not mere sounds, dead syllables, they are living entities, symbols of consciousness, the consciousness of which I have just spoken. These symbols, being symbols of consciousness are luminous, they shed light all along, they are full of power and extend power all along, they have life and they are full of delight. It is this inner world that is behind the outer world of words that one has to be in touch with, be aware of, in the first instance, before one can have a mental understanding; in other words you must cultivate the right attitude, a turn of your consciousness in tune with the consciousness that has worked out the words of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. You have to take a plunge, as it were, dip into the waters, and be soaked in the caress of that element, to come in the living touch of the Substance of words, go behind the meaning, if necessary, avoiding it even. You must contact the living sap, the rasa, that has poured itself out in the creation. If you have tasted of that, then It has its own light that will suffuse you automatically with its radiance; the delight of bathing in the living spring will formulate itself in rhythms of knowledge and true understanding.
At least such should be the basis of approach to the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. You may have possessed a rich intellectual apparatus, you may have all the information that sciences and philosophies have gathered, you may have perused the whole story of the evolution of human knowledge up to the present time, all these are lesser lights, they do not illuminate the light before which you stand. That light is shown and recognised by its own reflection or emanation in you, the little light that is in you, your soul.
10.28 - Love and Love, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Mother says: there is only one Love, there are not two. And it is Divine Love. The difference arises only in its expression, in its application. In its essential quality and Substance it is always the same. Take for example human love; stripped of the mere human element, love remains the same original thing. Because the old ascetic orders of spiritual discipline, in the main, considered love essentially and wholly earthy and human; they rejected this limb altogether, cut it out as undivine. But that is an error.
We do not regard love, even human love, as an error but a power, a force and energy. Love, even human love, is not to be amputated or rooted out but like gold as ore, it has to be purified. The work is hard but it is worth the trouble.
--
Science in a practical way through material means tries to prolong life as far as possible, as for us, we are not limited to that necessity. What we have to do is to clean the energy which is now obscure in the material cell, make it luminous. The way is the way of consciousness. Every human being has in him the possibility, the capacity of making his own consciousness come forth, pure, transparent, luminous and then in and through that pure light charge the body too with a transfiguring force or energy. This material body of man has the marvellous advantage of being united, of being able to unite itself with the Supreme Consciousness. Indeed as through his consciousness man has the privilege of ascending to the supreme consciousness, even so in and through the same consciousness, the physical cell also has the privilege of establishing a contact with the Supreme Substance. What is true of man's mind and life is true also of the material cell. Even as life impulses and mental knowings can be uplifted and transfigured, these physical cells too may achieve the same transfiguration because in man all these elements share equally in the Divine Substance lodged there. Of the animal, the lower creation, we cannot say the same thing for it does not possess overtly the Divine element that dwells in man. This Divine Element is what we call the psychic consciousness, the Divine himself formed secretly or framed in matter. It is that which comes in contact with the human mental and the human vital and the human body, and succeeds in remoulding them in the Supreme Nature.
Of course, there was always in the ancient days also, in some disciplines or others, an aspiration, an urge to immortalise the body, but the means they adopted, the instruments they chose for the operation were indirect and secondary. It was either through the force of a luminous mind influencing the body or through the pressure of concentrated vital force making the body an obedient and docile instrument. The former was the process followed by the Vaishnavas who envisaged a luminous body, the second was the aim of the Tantriks who sought to rejuvenate the body, possess it youthful and vigorous indefinitely. The Hatha yogis also in their turn through physico-vital exercises attempted to acquire a new body changing the modalities of the old. The ancient alchemists tried more material means, the use of alchemic Substances for cleansing the body making it free from disease and, if possible, death. But the secret power lies in the body itself, that is, in the very self of the body, not anywhere else. The hidden consciousness lodged in the cell, the material cell, that is the key to the problem, that secret consciousness and its energy asleep in the cell, has to be awakened and brought into play. When the physical cell itself awakes and declares its purpose, the thing is done.
This secret consciousness-energy appearing as a material form is also intrinsically the delight of existence. Its other name is Divine Grace and Love.
1.02.9 - Conclusion and Summary, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Vedantic writings in style, Substance and versification,
subsequent certainly to the Chhandogya, Brihadaranyaka
10.29 - Gods Debt, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, we go beyond the gods, to the very origin, God himself, the Supreme. What is the debt that God, the Supreme, the Divine, owes to us human beings? We owe to God everything, our life, our very existence, our soul and Substance given to us by him, then how is he indebted to us? What kind of debt he has incurred which he has to pay to his creature, the human being? Primarily because he is the Divine Father, he has to take charge of his own creation, see to its growth and fruition and fulfilment. Indeed that is the role of the Divine in us (and above us and around us): that is his work, the Divine Work. Since he has put us out of his consciousness (for a special experience of growth and development), it is also his work (and duty) to bring us back to him: after a process of self-separation a process of self-integration. Man, so long as he is a separate consciousness has to dedicate, lift up and unify this separative conscious being to the whole being and consciousness. This is how he discharges his debt to the Divine, and the answering grace of the Divine is the clearing of the debt which He owes to His creatures.
What has been said of man is equally applicable to earth. The destiny of man is the destiny of earth as also the destiny of earth is the destiny of man. For man is an earthly creature, is born out of earth and he grows with the growth of the earth; equally the earth grows with the growth of man.
1.02 - BEFORE THE CITY-GATE, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
Opposing Substances agree.
There was a Lion red, a wooer daring,
1.02 - In the Beginning, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
And it is in the countries where the masculine Principle has been most singly adored that it comes to be denied with equal exaggeration to the sole enthronement of its antithesis. One day, under the name of Nature, the Feminine takes its revenge. Art aids Science to restore her cult, on the ruins of the supernatural there is erected a positivist Revelation and God vanishes from view in the ideas of Force, Substance and Movement.
It is as a result of the meeting of these two tendencies and in those points in which the great opponents have at present succeeded in neutralising each other that the religions of the West, in order better to adapt themselves to the needs of life and the demands of Reason, have toned down their dogma and softened the rigidity of their iconoclasm.
1.02 - IN THE COMPANY OF DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"There is another benefit from holy company. It helps one cultivate discrimination between the Real and the unreal. God alone is the Real, that is to say, the Eternal Substance, and the world is unreal, that is to say, transitory. As soon as a man finds his mind wandering away to the unreal, he should apply discrimination. The moment an elephant stretches out its trunk to eat a plantain-tree in a neighbour's garden, it gets a blow from the iron goad of the driver."
Explanation of evil
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
meaning is clear: the divinities are born from the very Substance of the supreme god. Just as in the
Sumerian tradition, Sky and Earth were united in an uninterrupted hieros gamos until the moment when
1.02 - Prana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
In this universe there is one continuous Substance on every plane of existence. Physically this universe is one: there is no difference between the sun and you. The scientist will tell you it is only a fiction to say the contrary. There is no real difference between the table and me; the table is one point in the mass of matter, and I another point. Each form represents, as it were, one whirlpool in the infinite ocean of matter, of which not one is constant. Just as in a rushing stream there may be millions of whirlpools, the water in each of which is different every moment, turning round and round for a few seconds, and then passing out, replaced by a fresh quantity, so the whole universe is one constantly changing mass of matter, in which all forms of existence are so many whirlpools. A mass of matter enters into one whirlpool, say a human body, stays there for a period, becomes changed, and goes out into another, say an animal body this time, from which again after a few years, it enters into another whirlpool, called a lump of mineral. It is a constant change. Not one body is constant. There is no such thing as my body, or your body, except in words. Of the one huge mass of matter, one point is called a moon, another a sun, another a man, another the earth, another a plant, another a mineral. Not one is constant, but everything is changing, matter eternally concreting and disintegrating. So it is with the mind. Matter is represented by the ether; when the action of Prana is most subtle, this very ether, in the finer state of vibration, will represent the mind and there it will be still one unbroken mass. If you can simply get to that subtle vibration, you will see and feel that the whole universe is composed of subtle vibrations. Sometimes certain drugs have the power to take us, while as yet in the senses, to that condition. Many of you may remember the celebrated experiment of Sir Humphrey Davy, when the laughing gas overpowered him how, during the lecture, he remained motionless, stupefied and after that, he said that the whole universe was made up of ideas. For, the time being, as it were, the gross vibrations had ceased, and only the subtle vibrations which he called ideas, were present to him. He could only see the subtle vibrations round him; everything had become thought; the whole universe was an ocean of thought, he and everyone else had become little thought whirlpools.
Thus, even in the universe of thought we find unity, and at last, when we get to the Self, we know that that Self can only be One. Beyond the vibrations of matter in its gross and subtle aspects, beyond motion there is but One. Even in manifested motion there is only unity. These facts can no more be denied. Modern physics also has demonstrated that the sum total of the energies in the universe is the same throughout. It has also been proved that this sum total of energy exists in two forms. It becomes potential, toned down, and calmed, and next it comes out manifested as all these various forces; again it goes back to the quiet state, and again it manifests. Thus it goes on evolving and involving through eternity. The control of this Prana, as before stated, is what is called Pranayama.
1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Having glorified him who is the support of all things; who is the smallest of the small[4]; who is in all created things; the unchanged, imperishable[5] Puruṣottama[6]; who is one with true wisdom, as truly known[7]; eternal and incorrupt; and who is known through false appearances by the nature of visible objects[8]: having bowed to Viṣṇu, the destroyer, and lord of creation and preservation; the ruler of the world; unborn, imperishable, undecaying: I will relate to you that which was originally imparted by the great father of all (Brahmā), in answer to the questions of Dakṣa and other venerable sages, and repeated by them to Purukutsa, a king who reigned on the banks of the Narmadā. It was next related by him to Sāraswata, and by Sāraswata to me[9]. Who can describe him who is not to be apprehended by the senses: who is the best of all things; the supreme soul, self-existent: who is devoid of all the distinguishing characteristics of complexion, caste, or the like; and is exempt front birth, vicissitude, death, or decay: who is always, and alone: who exists every where, and in whom all things here exist; and who is thence named Vāsudeva[10]? He is Brahma[11], supreme, lord, eternal, unborn, imperishable, undecaying; of one essence; ever pure as free from defects. He, that Brahma, was all things; comprehending in his own nature the indiscrete and discrete. He then existed in the forms of Puruṣa and of Kāla. Puruṣa (spirit) is the first form, of the supreme; next proceeded two other forms, the discrete and indiscrete; and Kāla (time) was the last. These four-Pradhāna (primary or crude matter), Puruṣa (spirit), Vyakta (visible Substance), and Kāla (time)-the wise consider to be the pure and supreme condition of Viṣṇu[12]. These four forms, in their due proportions, are the causes of the production of the phenomena of creation, preservation, and destruction. Viṣṇu being thus discrete and indiscrete Substance, spirit, and time, sports like a playful boy, as you shall learn by listening to his frolics[13].
That chief principle (Pradhāna), which is the indiscrete cause, is called by the sages also Prakriti (nature): it is subtile, uniform, and comprehends what is and what is not (or both causes and effects); is durable, self-sustained, illimitable, undecaying, and stable; devoid of sound or touch, and possessing neither colour nor form; endowed with the three qualities (in equilibrium); the mother of the world; without beginning; and that into which all that is produced is resolved[14]. By that principle all things were invested in the period subsequent to the last dissolution of the universe, and prior to creation[15]. For Brahmans learned in the Vedas, and teaching truly their doctrines, explain such passages as the following as intending the production of the chief principle (Pradhāna). "There was neither day nor night, nor sky nor earth, nor darkness nor light, nor any other thing, save only One, unapprehensible by intellect, or That which is Brahma and Pumān (spirit) and Pradhāna (matter)[16]." The two forms which are other than the essence of unmodified Viṣṇu, are Pradhāna (matter) and Puruṣa (spirit); and his other form, by which those two are connected or separated, is called Kāla (time)[17]. When discrete Substance is aggregated in crude nature, as in a foregone dissolution, that dissolution is termed elemental (Prākrita). The deity as Time is without beginning, and his end is not known; and from him the revolutions of creation, continuance, and dissolution unintermittingly succeed: for when, in the latter season, the equilibrium of the qualities (Pradhāna) exists, and spirit (Pumān) is detached from matter, then the form of Viṣṇu which is Time abides[18]. Then the supreme Brahma, the supreme soul, the Substance of the world, the lord of all creatures, the universal soul, the supreme ruler, Hari, of his own will having entered into matter and spirit, agitated the mutable and immutable principles, the season of creation being arrived, in the same manner as fragrance affects the mind from its proximity merely, and not from any immediate operation upon mind itself: so the Supreme influenced the elements of creation[19]. Puruṣottama is both the agitator and the thing to be agitated; being present in the essence of matter, both when it is contracted and expanded[20]. Viṣṇu, supreme over the supreme, is of the nature of discrete forms in the atomic productions, Brahmā and the rest (gods, men, &c.)
Then from that equilibrium of the qualities (Pradhāna), presided over by soul[21], proceeds the unequal developement of those qualities (constituting the principle Mahat or Intellect) at the time of creation[22]. The Chief principle then invests that Great principle, Intellect, and it becomes threefold, as affected by the quality of goodness, foulness, or darkness, and invested by the Chief principle (matter) as seed is by its skin. From the Great principle (Mahat) Intellect, threefold Egotism, (Aha
--
kāra.' The Purāṇas generally employ the same expression, attributing to Mahat or Intelligence the 'act of creating. Mahat is therefore the divine mind in creative operation, the νοῦς ὁ διακόσμων τε καὶ πάντων ἀίτιος of Anaxagoras; an ordering and disposing mind, which was the cause of all things: The word itself suggests some relationship to the Phœnician Mot, which, like Mahat, was the first product of the mixture of spirit and matter, and the first rudiment of creation: "Ex connexione autem ejus spiritus prodiit mot . . . hinc seminium omnis creaturæ et omnium rerum creatio." Brucker, I. 240. Mot, it is true, . appears to be a purely material Substance, whilst Mahat is an incorporeal Substance; but they agree in their place in the cosmogony, and are something alike in name. How far also the Phœnician system has been accurately described, is matter of uncertainty. See Sā
khya Kārikā, p. 83.
--
khya, and appears to deny the existence of matter: and so it does as an independent existence; for the origin and end of infinite Substance is the Deity or universal spirit: but it does not therefore imply the non-existence of the world as real Substance.
[35]: Viṣṇu is both Bhūteśa, 'lord of the elements,' or of created things, and Viśvarūpa, 'universal Substance:' he is therefore, as one with sensible things, subject to his own control.
[36]: Vareṇya, 'most excellent;' being the same, according to the commentator, with supreme felicity.
1.02 - SADHANA PADA, #Patanjali Yoga Sutras, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
his net out of his own Substance, and becomes bound in his
net, and cannot go anywhere except along the lines of that net,
so we have projected out of our own Substance this net-work
called the nerves, and we cannot work except through the
--
the internal Substance of the oyster is taking up matter from
outside, and manufacturing the shell. In the same way these
1.02 - Skillful Means, #The Lotus Sutra, #Anonymous, #Various
O riputra! To put it briey, the buddhas have attained this immeasurable, limitless, and unprecedented Dharma. Enough, O riputra, I will speak no further. Why is this? Because the Dharma that the buddhas have attained is foremost, unique, and difficult to understand. No one but the buddhas can completely know the real aspects of all dharmas that is to say their character, nature, Substance, potential, function, cause, condition, result, effect, and essential unity.
23
--
Know that all dharmas are ever without Substance
And that the buddha-seeds germinate
1.02 - SOCIAL HEREDITY AND PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
moment of reproduction. The wave of life in its Substance and
with its particular characteristics is of necessity communicated to
1.02 - Substance Is Eternal, #Of The Nature Of Things, #Lucretius, #Poetry
object:1.02 - Substance Is Eternal
This terror, then, this darkness of the mind,
1.02 - The Eternal Law, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But what kind of men, what human Substance, was he going to find in that India he did not know? Once we have set aside the exotic facade and the bizarre (to us) customs that amuse and intrigue tourists,
there nevertheless remains something strange; and saying that Indians are a gentle, dreamy, fatalistic people, detached from the world, only describes the effect, not the cause. "Strange" is indeed the word,
because spontaneously, in their very physical Substance, without the least "thought" or even "faith," Indians sink their roots very deeply into other worlds; they do not altogether belong here. In them, these other worlds rise constantly to the surface; at the least touch the veil is rent, remarks Sri Aurobindo. This physical world, which for us is so real and absolute and unique, seems to them but one way of living among many others, one modality of the total existence among many others; in other words, a small chaotic, agitated, and rather painful frontier on the margin of immense continents which lie behind,
unexplored.16 This substantial difference between Indians and other peoples appears most strikingly in their art, as it does also in Egyptian art (and, we assume without knowing it, in the art of Central America). If we leave behind our light and open cathedrals that soar high like a triumph of the divine thought in man suddenly to find 16
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The purpose of all words is to illustrate the meaning of an object. When they are heard, they should enable the hearer to understand this meaning, and this according to the four categories of Substance, of activity, of quality and of relationship. For example cow and horse belong to the category of Substance. He cooks or he prays belongs to the category of activity. White and black belong to the category of quality. Having money or possessing cows belongs to the category of relationship. Now there is no class of Substance to which the Brahman belongs, no common genus. It cannot therefore be denoted by words which, like being in the ordinary sense, signify a category of things. Nor can it be denoted by quality, for it is without qualities; nor yet by activity because it is without activityat rest, without parts or activity, according to the Scriptures. Neither can it be denoted by relationship, for it is without a second and is not the object of anything but its own self. Therefore it cannot be defined by word or idea; as the Scripture says, it is the One before whom words recoil.
Shankara
--
First, as to creation: if a human mind can directly influence matter not merely within, but even outside its body, then a divine mind, immanent in the universe or transcendent to it, may be presumed to be capable of imposing forms upon a pre-existing chaos of formless matter, or even, perhaps, of thinking Substance as well as forms into existence.
Once created or divinely informed, the universe has to be sustained. The necessity for a continuous re-creation of the world becomes manifest, according to Descartes, when we consider the nature of time, or the duration of things; for this is of such a kind that its parts are not mutually dependent and never co-existent; and, accordingly, from the fact that we are now it does not necessarily follow that we shall be a moment afterwards, unless some cause, viz. that which first produced us, shall, as it were, continually reproduce us, that is, conserve us. Here we seem to have something analogous, on the cosmic level, to that physiological intelligence which, in men and the lower animals, unsleepingly performs the task of seeing that bodies behave as they should. Indeed, the physiological intelligence may plausibly be regarded as a special aspect of the general re-creating Logos. In Chinese phraseology it is the Tao as it manifests itself on the level of living bodies.
--
(In the Reality unitively known by the mystic), we can speak no more of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, nor of any creature, but only one Being, which is the very Substance of the Divine Persons. There were we all one before our creation, for this is our super-essence. There the Godhead is in simple essence without activity.
Ruysbroeck
1.02 - The Philosophy of Ishvara, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
Who is Ishvara? Janmdyasya yatah "From whom is the birth, continuation, and dissolution of the universe," He is Ishvara "the Eternal, the Pure, the Ever-Free, the Almighty, the AllKnowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher of all teachers"; and above all, Sa Ishvarah anirvachaniyapremasvarupah "He the Lord is, of His own nature, inexpressible Love." These certainly are the definitions of a Personal God. Are there then two Gods the "Not this, not this," the Sat-chit-nanda, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the philosopher, and this God of Love of the Bhakta? No, it is the same Sat-chit-ananda who is also the God of Love, the impersonal and personal in one. It has always to be understood that the Personal God worshipped by the Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman. All is Brahman, the One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or absolute, is too much of an abstraction to be loved and worshipped; so the Bhakta chooses the relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara, the Supreme Ruler. To use a simile: Brahman is as the clay or Substance out of which an infinite variety of articles are fashioned. As clay, they are all one; but form or manifestation differentiates them. Before every one of them was made, they all existed potentially in the clay, and, of course, they are identical substantially; but when formed, and so long as the form remains, they are separate and different; the clay-mouse can never become a clay-elephant, because, as manifestations, form alone makes them what they are, though as unformed clay they are all one.
Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.
1.02 - The Principle of Fire, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Every one will realize at once, of course, that the quality of expansion is identical with extension. This elementary principle of fire is latent and active in all things created, as a matter of fact, in the whole Universe beginning from the tiniest grain of sand to the most sublime Substance visible or invisible.
1.02 - THE QUATERNIO AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MERCURIUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[9] B C D E represent the outside, A is the inside, as it were the origin and source from which the other letters flow, and likewise the final goal to which they flow back,41 F G stands for Above and Below. Together the letters A B C D E F G clearly signify the hidden magical Septenary. The central point A, the origin and goal, the Ocean or great sea, is also called a circulus exiguus, very small circle, and a mediator making peace between the enemies or elements, that they may love one another in a meet embrace.42 This little inner circle corresponds to the Mercurial Fountain in the Rosarium, which I have described in my Psychology of the Transference. The text calls it the more spiritual, perfect, and nobler Mercurius,43 the true arcane Substance, a spirit, and goes on:
For the spirit alone penetrates all things, even the most solid bodies.44 Thus the catholicity of religion, or of the true Church, consists not in a visible and bodily gathering together of men, but in the invisible, spiritual concord and harmony of those who believe devoutly and truly in the one Jesus Christ. Whoever attaches himself to a particular church outside this King of Kings, who alone is the shepherd of the true spiritual church, is a sectarian, a schismatic, and a heretic. For the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation, but is within us, as our Saviour himself says in the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke.45
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Our Mercurius is therefore that same [Microcosm], who contains within him the perfections, virtues, and powers of Sol [in the dual sense of sun and gold], and who goes through the streets [vicos] and houses of all the planets, and in his regeneration has obtained the power of Above and Below, wherefore he is to be likened to their marriage, as is evident from the white and the red that are conjoined in him. The sages have affirmed in their wisdom that all creatures are to be brought to one united Substance.61
Accordingly Mercurius, in the crude form of the prima materia, is in very truth the Original Man disseminated through the physical world, and in his sublimated form he is that reconstituted totality.62 Altogether, he is very like the redeemer of the Basilidians, who mounts upward through the planetary spheres, conquering them or robbing them of their power. The remark that he contains the powers of Sol reminds us of the above-mentioned passage in Abul-Qasim, where Hermes says that he unites the sun and the planets and causes them to be within him as a crown. This may be the origin of the designation of the lapis as the crown of victory.63 The power of Above and Below refers to that ancient authority the Tabula smaragdina, which is of Alexandrian origin.64 Besides this, our text contains allusions to the Song of Songs: through the streets and houses of the planets recalls Song of Songs 3 : 2: I will . . . go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth.65 The white and red of Mercurius refers to 5 : 10: My beloved is white and ruddy. He is likened to the matrimonium or coniunctio; that is to say he is this marriage on account of his androgynous form.
1.02 - The Two Negations 1 - The Materialist Denial, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3:If we assert only pure Spirit and a mechanical unintelligent Substance or energy, calling one God or Soul and the other Nature, the inevitable end will be that we shall either deny God or else turn from Nature. For both Thought and Life, a choice then becomes imperative. Thought comes to deny the one as an illusion of the imagination or the other as an illusion of the senses; Life comes to fix on the immaterial and flee from itself in a disgust or a self-forgetting ecstasy, or else to deny its own immortality and take its orientation away from God and towards the animal. Purusha and Prakriti, the passively luminous Soul of the Sankhyas and their mechanically active Energy, have nothing in common, not even their opposite modes of inertia; their antinomies can only be resolved by the cessation of the inertly driven Activity into the immutable Repose upon which it has been casting in vain the sterile procession of its images. Shankara's wordless, inactive Self and his Maya of many names and forms are equally disparate and irreconcilable entities; their rigid antagonism can terminate only by the dissolution of the multitudinous illusion into the sole Truth of an eternal Silence.
4:The materialist has an easier field; it is possible for him by denying Spirit to arrive at a more readily convincing simplicity of statement, a real Monism, the Monism of Matter or else of Force. But in this rigidity of statement it is impossible for him to persist permanently. He too ends by positing an unknowable as inert, as remote from the known universe as the passive Purusha or the silent Atman. It serves no purpose but to put off by a vague concession the inexorable demands of Thought or to stand as an excuse for refusing to extend the limits of inquiry. Therefore, in these barren contradictions the human mind cannot rest satisfied. It must seek always a complete affirmation; it can find it only by a luminous reconciliation. To reach that reconciliation it must traverse the degrees which our inner consciousness imposes on us and, whether by objective method of analysis applied to Life and Mind as to Matter or by subjective synthesis and illumination, arrive at the repose of the ultimate unity without denying the energy of the expressive multiplicity. Only in such a complete and catholic affirmation can all the multiform and apparently contradictory data of existence be harmonised and the manifold conflicting forces which govern our thought and life discover the central Truth which they are here to symbolise and variously fulfil. Then only can our Thought, having attained a true centre, ceasing to wander in circles, work like the Brahman of the Upanishad, fixed and stable even in its play and its worldwide coursing, and our life, knowing its aim, serve it with a serene and settled joy and light as well as with a rhythmically discursive energy.
--
17:Not only in the one final conception, but in the great line of its general results Knowledge, by whatever path it is followed, tends to become one. Nothing can be more remarkable and suggestive than the extent to which modern Science confirms in the domain of Matter the conceptions and even the very formulae of language which were arrived at, by a very different method, in the Vedanta, - the original Vedanta, not of the schools of metaphysical philosophy, but of the Upanishads. And these, on the other hand, often reveal their full significance, their richer contents only when they are viewed in the new light shed by the discoveries of modern Science, - for instance, that Vedantic expression which describes things in the Cosmos as one seed arranged by the universal Energy in multitudinous forms.6 Significant, especially, is the drive of Science towards a Monism which is consistent with multiplicity, towards the Vedic idea of the one essence with its many becomings. Even if the dualistic appearance of Matter and Force be insisted on, it does not really stand in the way of this Monism. For it will be evident that essential Matter is a thing non-existent to the senses and only, like the Pradhana of the Sankhyas, a conceptual form of Substance; and in fact the point is increasingly reached where only an arbitrary distinction in thought divides form of Substance from form of energy.
18:Matter expresses itself eventually as a formulation of some unknown Force. Life, too, that yet unfathomed mystery, begins to reveal itself as an obscure energy of sensibility imprisoned in its material formulation; and when the dividing ignorance is cured which gives us the sense of a gulf between Life and Matter, it is difficult to suppose that Mind, Life and Matter will be found to be anything else than one Energy triply formulated, the triple world of the Vedic seers. Nor will the conception then be able to endure of a brute material Force as the mother of Mind. The Energy that creates the world can be nothing else than a Will, and Will is only consciousness applying itself to a work and a result.
1.02 - THE WITHIN OF THINGS, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
destroyed by the discovery of radio-active Substances. By the
standards of our human existence, the mountains and stars are a
--
and the Substance of all knowledge.
The apparent restriction of the phenomenon of consciousness
--
classified as an ' abnormal Substance ' without further ado ?
Clearly, the activity of radium had not been neglected, and could
--
their Substance in some masterly lines recently written by J. B. S. Haldane :
' We do not find obvious evidence of life or ruiiid in so-called inert matter,
--
The simplest form of protoplasm is already a Substance of
unheard-of complexity. This complexity increases in geometrical
--- Overview of noun substance
The noun substance has 7 senses (first 3 from tagged texts)
1. (17) substance ::: (the real physical matter of which a person or thing consists; "DNA is the substance of our genes")
2. (2) kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty ::: (the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience; "the gist of the prosecutor's argument"; "the heart and soul of the Republican Party"; "the nub of the story")
3. (2) meaning, substance ::: (the idea that is intended; "What is the meaning of this proverb?")
4. substance ::: (material of a particular kind or constitution; "the immune response recognizes invading substances")
5. means, substance ::: (considerable capital (wealth or income); "he is a man of means")
6. message, content, subject matter, substance ::: (what a communication that is about something is about)
7. substance ::: (a particular kind or species of matter with uniform properties; "shigella is one of the most toxic substances known to man")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun substance
7 senses of substance
Sense 1
substance
=> matter
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> part, portion, component part, component, constituent
=> relation
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
meaning, substance
=> idea, thought
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 4
substance
=> physical entity
=> entity
Sense 5
means, substance
=> capital
=> assets
=> possession
=> relation
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 6
message, content, subject matter, substance
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 7
substance
=> matter
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun substance
6 of 7 senses of substance
Sense 1
substance
=> body substance
=> protoplasm, living substance
=> chemistry
=> material, stuff
=> phlogiston
=> mixture
=> atom
=> chemical element, element
=> activator
=> substrate
=> element
=> medium
=> medium
=> fluid
=> volatile
=> essence
Sense 2
kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty
=> bare bones
=> hypostasis
=> quiddity, haecceity
=> quintessence
=> stuff
Sense 3
meaning, substance
=> semantics
=> significance, import, implication
=> tenor, strain
=> undertone, undercurrent
=> reference, denotation, extension
=> reference
=> connotation
Sense 5
means, substance
=> pocketbook
=> wherewithal
Sense 6
message, content, subject matter, substance
=> body
=> corker
=> reminder
=> request, petition, postulation
=> memorial
=> latent content
=> subject, topic, theme
=> digression, aside, excursus, divagation, parenthesis
=> meaning, significance, signification, import
=> nonsense, bunk, nonsensicality, meaninglessness, hokum
=> drivel, garbage
=> acknowledgment, acknowledgement
=> refusal
=> information, info
=> guidance, counsel, counseling, counselling, direction
=> commitment, dedication
=> approval, commendation
=> disapproval
=> respects
=> disrespect, discourtesy
=> interpolation, insertion
=> statement
=> statement
=> wit, humor, humour, witticism, wittiness
=> opinion, view
=> direction, instruction
=> proposal
=> offer, offering
=> submission, entry
=> narrative, narration, story, tale
=> promotion, publicity, promotional material, packaging
=> sensationalism
=> shocker
Sense 7
substance
=> food, nutrient
=> nutrient
=> philosopher's stone, philosophers' stone, elixir
=> allergen
=> assay
=> pyrogen, pyrectic
=> pyrogen
=> hydrocolloid
=> adulterant, adulterator
=> propellant, propellent
=> denaturant
=> inhibitor
=> ferment
=> agent
=> carcinogen
=> digestive
=> fomentation
=> fuel
=> lubricant, lubricator, lubricating substance, lube
=> humectant
=> inoculant, inoculum
=> jelly
=> leaven, leavening
=> refrigerant
=> lysin
=> poison, toxicant, poisonous substance
=> chemical irritant
=> antigen
=> ligand
=> metabolite
=> vehicle
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun substance
7 senses of substance
Sense 1
substance
=> matter
=> part, portion, component part, component, constituent
Sense 2
kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
Sense 3
meaning, substance
=> idea, thought
Sense 4
substance
=> physical entity
Sense 5
means, substance
=> capital
Sense 6
message, content, subject matter, substance
=> communication
Sense 7
substance
=> matter
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun substance
7 senses of substance
Sense 1
substance
-> matter
=> substance
=> substance
=> sediment, deposit
=> ylem
=> dark matter
=> antimatter
=> glop
=> fluid
=> sludge, slime, goo, goop, gook, guck, gunk, muck, ooze
=> system
=> residue
=> solid
=> solute
=> emanation
=> vegetable matter
-> part, portion, component part, component, constituent
=> substance
=> language unit, linguistic unit
=> item, point
=> butt
=> basis, base
=> detail, particular, item
=> unit
=> member
=> remainder, balance, residual, residue, residuum, rest
=> subpart
Sense 2
kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty
-> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> tradition
=> object
=> food, food for thought, intellectual nourishment
=> noumenon, thing-in-itself
=> universe, universe of discourse
=> topic, subject, issue, matter
=> issue
=> idea, thought
=> kernel, substance, core, center, centre, essence, gist, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty
=> wisdom
=> representation, mental representation, internal representation
=> belief
=> unbelief, disbelief
=> heresy, unorthodoxy
=> goal, end
=> education
=> experience
=> acculturation, culture
=> lore, traditional knowledge
=> ignorance
=> knowledge domain, knowledge base, domain
=> metaknowledge
Sense 3
meaning, substance
-> idea, thought
=> inspiration
=> cogitation
=> concept, conception, construct
=> preoccupation
=> misconception
=> plan, program, programme
=> figment
=> generalization, generalisation, generality
=> suggestion
=> impression, feeling, belief, notion, opinion
=> reaction
=> theorem
=> notion, whim, whimsy, whimsey
=> meaning, substance
=> burden
=> theme, motif
=> ideal
=> idealization, idealisation
=> keynote
=> kink
Sense 4
substance
-> physical entity
=> thing
=> object, physical object
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> matter
=> process, physical process
=> substance
Sense 5
means, substance
-> capital
=> endowment, endowment fund
=> means, substance
=> principal, corpus, principal sum
Sense 6
message, content, subject matter, substance
-> communication
=> publication
=> message
=> contagion, infection
=> language, linguistic communication
=> written communication, written language, black and white
=> message, content, subject matter, substance
=> didacticism
=> signal, signaling, sign
=> sign
=> indication, indicant
=> visual communication
=> display
=> expressive style, style
=> paralanguage, paralinguistic communication
=> auditory communication
=> voice, vocalization, vocalisation, vocalism, phonation, vox
=> psychic communication, psychical communication, anomalous communication
=> voice
=> document
Sense 7
substance
-> matter
=> substance
=> substance
=> sediment, deposit
=> ylem
=> dark matter
=> antimatter
=> glop
=> fluid
=> sludge, slime, goo, goop, gook, guck, gunk, muck, ooze
=> system
=> residue
=> solid
=> solute
=> emanation
=> vegetable matter
--- Grep of noun substance
body substance
chemical substance
controlled substance
gray substance
grey substance
ground substance
humic substance
intercellular substance
liquid body substance
living substance
lubricating substance
plant substance
poisonous substance
psychoactive substance
solid body substance
substance
substance abuse
substance abuser
synthetic substance
translucent substance
transparent substance
Wikipedia - 1986 California Proposition 65 -- California law to protect drinking water from toxic substances
Wikipedia - Absorption band -- Range on the electromagnetic spectrum which are characteristic of a certain transition from initial to final state in a substance
Wikipedia - Acid -- Type of chemical substance
Wikipedia - Acrylic retarder -- Substance added to acrylic paints
Wikipedia - Acute toxicity -- Adverse effects of a substance that result either from a single exposure
Wikipedia - Adamant -- Mythological hardest substance
Wikipedia - Adipocere -- Waxy substance formed by anaerobic hydrolysis of fat
Wikipedia - Advection -- The transport of a substance by bulk motion
Wikipedia - Aerosolization -- Process of converting a substance into an aerosol
Wikipedia - Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry -- US federal agency
Wikipedia - Air pollution -- Harmful substances in the atmosphere
Wikipedia - Allergy -- Immune system response to a substance that most people tolerate well
Wikipedia - Ambergris -- Substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales
Wikipedia - Amount of substance -- Extensive physical property
Wikipedia - Anaphrodisiac -- Substance that quells or blunts the libido
Wikipedia - Anhydrous -- Waterless substance
Wikipedia - Antibiotic -- Antimicrobial substance active against bacteria
Wikipedia - Anticholinergic -- Chemical substance that blocks the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the central and the peripheral nervous system
Wikipedia - Anti-diabetic medication -- Substances which lower blood glucose levels
Wikipedia - Antipyretic -- a substance that reduces fever
Wikipedia - Arteriolar vasodilator -- Substance or medication that preferentially dilates arterioles
Wikipedia - Asphaltene -- Heavy organic molecular substances that are found in crude oil
Wikipedia - Autotroph -- Any organism that produces complex organic compounds from simple substances present in its surroundings
Wikipedia - Bacteriolysin -- Class of substances which dissolve bacterial cell walls
Wikipedia - BALCO scandal -- Involved the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances
Wikipedia - Behavioral addiction -- Compulsion to engage in a non-substance related behavior
Wikipedia - Biogeochemical cycle -- Cycling of substances through biotic and abiotic compartments of Earth
Wikipedia - Biomaterial -- Any substance that has been engineered to interact with biological systems for a medical purpose
Wikipedia - Biomonitoring -- Measurement of the body burden of toxic chemical compounds, elements, or their metabolites, in biological substances
Wikipedia - Blood-retinal barrier -- Part of the blood-ocular barrier that prevents certain substances from entering the retina
Wikipedia - Bog butter -- Ancient substance found in peat bogs
Wikipedia - Boiling point -- Temperature at which a substance changes from liquid into vapor
Wikipedia - Bottled gas -- Substances which are gaseous at standard temperature and pressure and have been compressed and stored in gas cylinders
Wikipedia - Brass plate company -- Company of no physical substance
Wikipedia - Bronchodilator -- Substance that decreases resistance in respiratory airways and increases airflow to the lungs
Wikipedia - Bulk modulus -- Measure of how incompressible / resistant to compressibility a substance is
Wikipedia - Candle -- Wick embedded in solid flammable substance
Wikipedia - Cannabis in Tennessee -- Substance in Tennessee which is usually unlawful
Wikipedia - Carbonaceous sulfur hydride -- an uncharacterised chemical substance that is a room-temperature superconductor at extremely high pressure
Wikipedia - Carcinogen -- Substance, radionuclide, or radiation directly involved in causing cancer
Wikipedia - Castoreum -- Chemical substance
Wikipedia - Category:Alchemical substances
Wikipedia - Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
Wikipedia - Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
Wikipedia - Charcoal -- Lightweight black carbon residue, after pyrolysis of animal or vegetable substances
Wikipedia - Chemical accident -- Unintentional release of one or more hazardous substances which could harm human health and the environment
Wikipedia - Chemical energy -- Potential of a chemical substance to undergo a transformation through a chemical reaction to transform other chemical substances
Wikipedia - Chemical substance -- Matter of constant composition best characterized by the entities (molecules, formula units, atoms) it is composed of
Wikipedia - Chemical synthesis -- Planned series of chemical reactions to produce a desired substance
Wikipedia - Chemorepulsion -- Directional movement of a cell away from a substance
Wikipedia - Cleaning agent -- Substance used to remove dirt or other contaminants
Wikipedia - Coating -- Any substance spread over a surface
Wikipedia - Cocoa solids -- A mixture of many substances remaining after cocoa butter is extracted from cacao beans
Wikipedia - Colloid -- A mixture of an insoluble or soluble substance microscopically dispersed throughout another substance
Wikipedia - Composite material -- Material made from a combination of two or more unlike substances
Wikipedia - Consubstantiality -- Identity of substance, as between the three Persons of the Trinity and as between Christ and other humans
Wikipedia - Contrast agent -- Substance used in medical imaging to enhance the contrast of structures or fluids within the body
Wikipedia - Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
Wikipedia - Controlled Substances Act
Wikipedia - Convention on Psychotropic Substances
Wikipedia - Coolant -- Substance used to reduce or regulate the temperature of a system
Wikipedia - Cotton effect -- Characteristic change in optical rotatory dispersion and/or circular dichroism in the vicinity of an absorption band of a substance
Wikipedia - Crossroads Centre -- Substance abuse treatment facility in Antigua
Wikipedia - Curare -- Group of chemical substances used as poison
Wikipedia - Cure -- Substance or procedure that ends a medical condition
Wikipedia - Cytoskeletal drugs -- Substances or medications that interact with actin or tubulin
Wikipedia - Decay scheme -- A graphical presentation of all the transitions occurring in a decay of a radioactive substance
Wikipedia - Decomposition -- The process in which organic substances are broken down into simpler organic matter
Wikipedia - Dectaflur -- Fluoride-containing substance
Wikipedia - Desalination -- Removal of salts and minerals from a substance
Wikipedia - Detection dog -- Dog that is trained to use its senses to detect certain substances or items
Wikipedia - Dielectric -- Electrically poorly conducting or non-conducting, non-metallic substance of which charge carriers are generally not free to move
Wikipedia - Drug -- Substance having an effect on the body
Wikipedia - Dry etching -- Controlled material removal, without the use of liquid substances
Wikipedia - Dye -- Soluble chemical substance or natural material which can impart color to other materials
Wikipedia - Ectoplasm (paranormal) -- Substance in spiritualism
Wikipedia - Electrical resistivity and conductivity -- Measure of a substance's ability to resist or conduct electric current
Wikipedia - Entheogen -- Psychoactive substances that induce spiritual experiences
Wikipedia - Environmental hazard -- A harmful substance, a condition or an event
Wikipedia - Exocrine gland -- Gland that produces and secretes substances onto an epithelial surface way of a duct
Wikipedia - Explosive -- Substance that can explode
Wikipedia - Fertilizer -- Substance added to soils to supply plant nutrients for a better growth
Wikipedia - Fiber -- Natural or synthetic substance made of long, thin filaments
Wikipedia - Fire retardant -- Substance reducing flammability
Wikipedia - Fishing bait -- Substance or device used to attract fish
Wikipedia - Flame retardant -- Substance applied to items to slow burning or delay ignition
Wikipedia - Fluid -- Substance which continuously deforms under an applied shear stress, including liquids and gases
Wikipedia - Fluorescence -- Emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light
Wikipedia - Food -- Substances consumed as nutrition
Wikipedia - Fractional crystallization (chemistry) -- Method for refining substances based on differences in their solubility
Wikipedia - Friedrich Ernst Dorn -- German physicist and first to discover radioactive substance emitted from radon
Wikipedia - Fruit preserves -- Semi-creamy substance made of fruits and/or vegetables and sugar.
Wikipedia - Graphite -- Allotrope of carbon, mineral, substance
Wikipedia - Growth factor -- Protein or other substance that stimulates cellular proliferation
Wikipedia - Guam Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse -- Government agency of Guam
Wikipedia - Hazardous Substances Data Bank
Wikipedia - Hazard -- A substance or situation which has the potential to cause harm to health, life, the environment, property, or any other value
Wikipedia - Heat shield -- Component to shield a substance from absorbing excessive heat
Wikipedia - Hebenon -- poisonous botanical substance mentioned in Hamlet
Wikipedia - Herbert Kleber -- American psychiatrist and substance abuse researcher
Wikipedia - Hierarchy of precious substances
Wikipedia - Hourglass -- Device using the flow of a substance to measure time
Wikipedia - Human decontamination -- Is the process of cleansing the human body to remove contamination by hazardous materials including chemicals, radioactive substances, and infectious material.
Wikipedia - Human fat -- Historic pharmaceutical substance of human origin
Wikipedia - Hydrate -- Substance containing water or its constituent elements
Wikipedia - Ibogaine -- Psychoactive substance found in plants in the family Apocynaceae
Wikipedia - Immune tolerance -- State of unresponsiveness of the immune system to substances or tissue that have the capacity to elicit an immune response
Wikipedia - Impsonite -- bituminous substance
Wikipedia - Ingestion -- Consumption of a substance by an organism
Wikipedia - Inorganic substance -- Inorganic substance
Wikipedia - Insect repellent -- Substance which repels insects
Wikipedia - International Chemical Identifier -- Identifier for chemical substances
Wikipedia - Intracellular transport -- Directed movement of vesicles and substances within a cell
Wikipedia - Intratracheal instillation -- Introduction of a substance directly into the trachea
Wikipedia - Isinglass -- Substance obtained from the dried swim bladders of fish
Wikipedia - Lanolin -- Yellow waxy substance secreted by the sebaceous glands of wool-bearing animals
Wikipedia - Law of definite proportions -- Chemical law about the ratio of substances in a compound
Wikipedia - Leavening agent -- Substance which liberates gas and thereby increases the volume of a dough or batter
Wikipedia - Lecithin -- A generic term for amphiphilic substances of plant and animal origin
Wikipedia - Level sensor -- Sensor to detect the level of substances that flow
Wikipedia - Ligand (biochemistry) -- Substance that forms a complex with a biomolecule
Wikipedia - Lipid -- A substance of biological origin that is soluble in nonpolar solvents
Wikipedia - List of addiction and substance abuse organizations -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of alchemical substances -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of discredited substances -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Schedule 1 substances (CWC) -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Schedule 2 substances (CWC) -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Schedule 3 substances (CWC) -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of substances used in rituals -- list
Wikipedia - Lubricant -- Substance introduced to reduce friction between surfaces in mutual contact
Wikipedia - Mass fraction (chemistry) -- Fraction of one substance's mass to the mass of the total mixture
Wikipedia - Material flow analysis -- Analysis of the movement of substances within various systems
Wikipedia - Matter -- Substance that has mass and volume
Wikipedia - Mediated transport -- Transportation of substances via membrane
Wikipedia - Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act, 1928 -- South African controlled substances law
Wikipedia - Medication -- Substance used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease
Wikipedia - Mellified man -- Legendary medicinal substance, made of a human corpse preserved in honey
Wikipedia - Mental substance
Wikipedia - Mesoglea -- Substance found between the two epithelial cell layers in the bodies of coelenterates and sponges
Wikipedia - Microbicides for sexually transmitted diseases -- Pharmacologic agents and chemical substances
Wikipedia - Mineraloid -- A non-crystalline mineral-like substance
Wikipedia - Mixture -- Substance formed when two or more constituents are physically combined together
Wikipedia - Molar heat capacity -- Intensive quantity, heat capacity per amount of substance
Wikipedia - Molar volume -- Volume occupied by a given amount of particles of a substance
Wikipedia - Mole (unit) -- SI unit of amount of substance
Wikipedia - Mordant -- Substance used for binding dyes to fabrics
Wikipedia - Morphogen -- Biological substance that guides development by non-uniform distribution
Wikipedia - Mortar and pestle -- Equipment consisting of a bowl in which substances are ground using a pestle
Wikipedia - Mucilage -- Thick, gluey substance produced by nearly all plants and some microorganisms
Wikipedia - Mud-puddling -- Insects seeking out nutrients in certain moist substances such as rotting plant matter
Wikipedia - Mushroom poisoning -- Harmful effects from ingestion of toxic substances present in a mushroom
Wikipedia - Myelin -- Fatty substance that surrounds nerve cell axons to insulate them and increase transmission speed
Wikipedia - Narcotic -- Chemical substance with psycho-active properties
Wikipedia - Natural product -- Chemical compound or substance produced by a living organism, found in nature
Wikipedia - Navier-Stokes equations -- Equations describing the motion of viscous fluid substances
Wikipedia - Necroplasm -- Fictional magical substance
Wikipedia - Neurotransmitter -- Chemical substance that enables neurotransmission
Wikipedia - Neutronium -- Hypothetical substance composed purely of neutrons
Wikipedia - Nocebo -- Harmless substance that creates negative psychologically induced response in a patient
Wikipedia - Nootropic -- Drug, supplement, or other substance that improves cognitive function
Wikipedia - Nutrient -- Substance that an organism uses to live
Wikipedia - Occupational exposure limit -- Upper limit on the acceptable concentration of a hazardous substance
Wikipedia - O-Ethyl methylphosphonothioic acid -- A chemical often used in the creation of harmful substances.
Wikipedia - On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances -- Paper by Josiah Willard Gibbs
Wikipedia - Onycha -- Unknown biblical substance used in incense
Wikipedia - Opsonin -- Any molecule that identifies and marks cells or substances for destruction by the immune system
Wikipedia - Oral administration -- Route of administration where a substance is taken through the mouth
Wikipedia - Oxidizing agent -- Chemical compound used to oxidize another substance in a chemical reaction
Wikipedia - Paracellular transport -- Transfer of substances by passing through space between cells
Wikipedia - Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances -- Class of chemical compounds
Wikipedia - Performance-enhancing substance
Wikipedia - Perfume -- Mixture of fragrant substances, usually in liquid form, used to give agreeable scent to objects, air or living creatures
Wikipedia - Perkin triangle -- Chemistry apparatus specialized for the distillation of air-sensitive substances
Wikipedia - Perspiration -- Substance secreted by sweat gland
Wikipedia - Pesticide -- Substance used to destroy pests
Wikipedia - Petroleum jelly -- Chemical substance used as lubricating agent
Wikipedia - Philosopher's stone -- Legendary alchemical substance
Wikipedia - Physical substance
Wikipedia - Placebo -- Substance or treatment of no therapeutic value
Wikipedia - Poison -- Substance that causes death, injury or harm to organs
Wikipedia - Pollutant -- Substance or energy damaging to the environment
Wikipedia - Polyamorphism -- The ability of a substance to exist in more than one distinct amorphous state
Wikipedia - Polymer -- Substance composed of macromolecules with repeating structural units
Wikipedia - Polysorbate 20 -- Chemical substance
Wikipedia - Psychedelic substance
Wikipedia - Psychedelic therapy -- Medical treatment using altered states of consciousness induced by psychedelic substances to treat mental disorders
Wikipedia - Psychoactive substance
Wikipedia - Radioactive contamination -- Presence of radioactive substances where they are undesirable
Wikipedia - Radium, and Other Radioactive Substances -- Book by William Joseph Hammer
Wikipedia - Reagent -- Substance or compound that is added to a system in order to bring about a chemical reaction, or added to see if a reaction occurs
Wikipedia - Red mercury -- alleged chemical substance
Wikipedia - Refrigerant -- Substance in a refrigeration cycle
Wikipedia - Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances -- Database of toxicity information
Wikipedia - Relative density -- Ratio of the density (mass per volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material
Wikipedia - Representative money -- Any type of money that has face value greater than its value as material substance
Wikipedia - Resin -- Solid or highly viscous substance
Wikipedia - Route of administration -- Path by which a drug, fluid, poison, or other substance is taken into the body
Wikipedia - Rubefacient -- Substance for topical application that produces redness of the skin
Wikipedia - Settled insanity -- "settled" condition caused by long-term substance abuse
Wikipedia - Sizing -- Substance applied to, or incorporated into, other materials - especially papers and textiles - to act as a protective filler or glaze
Wikipedia - Smart ligand -- Sub-type of substance that forms a complex with a biomolecule
Wikipedia - Snap freezing -- Process of rapid cooling of a substance for the purpose of preservation
Wikipedia - Soap -- Substance used for cleaning
Wikipedia - Sober Grid -- Substance abuser social networking app
Wikipedia - Sober living houses -- people recovering from substance abuse stay on interim basis
Wikipedia - Solubility -- Capacity of a substance to dissolve in a solvent in a homogeneous way
Wikipedia - Solvent -- Substance dissolving a solute resulting in a solution
Wikipedia - Specific heat capacity -- Heat required to increase temperature of a given unit of mass of a substance
Wikipedia - Stacte -- Unknown biblical substance used in incense
Wikipedia - Standard molar entropy -- Standard entropy content of one mole of a substance under a standard state
Wikipedia - Steroid hormone -- Substance with biological function
Wikipedia - Stuffing -- Edible substance or mixture used to fill a cavity in another food item while cooking
Wikipedia - Sublimation (phase transition) -- Transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas state
Wikipedia - Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Wikipedia - Substance abuse prevention -- Measures to prevent the consumption of licit and illicit drugs
Wikipedia - Substance abuse -- Harmful use of a drug including alcohol
Wikipedia - Substance dependence -- Need for a drug, whose discontinuation results in withdrawal symptoms
Wikipedia - Substance dualism
Wikipedia - Substance intoxication
Wikipedia - Substance misuse
Wikipedia - Substance monotheism
Wikipedia - Substance of very high concern -- Chemical substance that is hazardous to humans or the environment
Wikipedia - Substance (philosophy)
Wikipedia - Substance P
Wikipedia - Substance-related disorder
Wikipedia - Substances poisonous to dogs -- Harmful substances
Wikipedia - Substance theory -- Basic ontological concept
Wikipedia - Substance use disorders
Wikipedia - Substance use disorder -- Continual use of drugs (including alcohol) despite detrimental consequences
Wikipedia - Susan B. Anthony II -- American journalist, activist, and substance abuse counselor
Wikipedia - Sweat gland -- Small tubular structures of the skin that produce sweat; a type of exocrine gland, which are glands that produce and secrete substances onto an epithelial surface by way of a duct.
Wikipedia - Table of specific heat capacities -- For some substances and engineering materials, includes volumetric and molar values
Wikipedia - Thermodynamic databases for pure substances -- Thermodynamic properties list
Wikipedia - Threshold limit value -- Upper limit on the acceptable exposure concentration of a hazardous substance in the workplace
Wikipedia - Toxicology testing -- Testing conducted to determine the degree to which a substance can damage a living or non-living organisms
Wikipedia - Toxin -- Poisonous substance produced within living cells or organisms
Wikipedia - Trivial name -- nonsystematic name for a chemical substance
Wikipedia - Tumor antigen -- Antigenic substance produced in tumor cells
Wikipedia - Uncontrolled Substance -- 1999 album by Inspectah Deck
Wikipedia - United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
Wikipedia - Vantablack -- Synthetic material, one of the darkest substances known
Wikipedia - Vaporizer (inhalation device) -- Device to vaporize substances for inhalation
Wikipedia - Vapor -- A substances in the gas phase at a temperature lower than its critical point
Wikipedia - Vegan cheese -- cheese-like substance made without animal products
Wikipedia - Vernix caseosa -- Waxy white substance found coating the skin of newborn human babies
Wikipedia - Volatility (chemistry) -- Tendency of a substance to vaporize
Wikipedia - Wharton's jelly -- Gelatinous substance within the umbilical cord
Wikipedia - White gas -- Name for a number of flammable substances
Wikipedia - Xenobiotic -- Foreign chemical substance found within an organism
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https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Mythological_substances
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Mythological_substances
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Psychology Wiki - Substance
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(1990) - Through contact with a mysterious substance, called Ooze, 4 little turtles in the canalization of New York mutate to giant turtles. They can speak, walk upright, and eat pizza. The wise rat Splinter becomes their mentor and educates them to become Ninjas. Their arch enemy is the leader of the Foot C...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze(1991) - The Turtles find out where the ooze, the substance which mutated them fifteen years ago came from. Unfortunately, Shredder learns about it and uses it to enhance himself and two new mutants, Tokka & Rahzar. So the Turtles have to prove again who's the better ninja fighter and save New York once agai...
My Little Pony: The Movie(1986) - The Witches from the Volcano of Gloom send a very powerful, purple slime-like substance known as "Smooze" to Ponyland. It is up to all of the little ponies to find help to stop the Smooze. Will the little ponies and there friends be able to save Ponyland from the Smooze and the Witches? Find out...
Doraemon: Nobita's animal planet(1990) - Nobita went to a world of animals through the "Wherever Gas", the substance to let you travel anywhere, same as the "Wherever Door" Doraemon uses. They came across with Chippo, a boy who looks like a dog and very adventurous. A group called Numiges plans on taking over the animal planet. Doraemon an...
Head Above Water(1996) - A woman finds out how the dead body of your old boyfriend can ruin your whole day in this black comedy. Nathalie (Cameron Diaz) is a lovely young woman with a history of substance abuse problems who is married to George (Harvey Keitel), a circuit court judge who first met her when she was brought be...
Beware! The Blob(1972) - A technician returns home from the North Pole but he brings home a piece of unknown frozen substance home it turns out to be a piece of the monstrous mass know as the Blob from the original film. The Blob is accidentally left out and thaws eating the technicians kitten, wife and eventually the techn...
Postcards From The Edge(1990) - Substance-addicted Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother Doris Mann, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who h...
The Green Slime(1968) - A giant asteroid is heading toward Earth so some astronauts disembark from a nearby space station to blow it up. The mission is successful, and they return to the station unknowingly bringing back a gooey green substance that mutates into one-eyed tentacled monsters that feed off electricity. Soon t...
Underdog(2007) - A police dog is accidentally kidnapped to be a guinea pig by Capitol City's best geneticist, Simon Bar Sinister, who is secretly experimenting on dogs to perfect his serum. The beagle escapes, but not before causing a lab fire and being exposed to various substances. Found by ex-police officer and w...
The Absent-Minded Professor(1961) - Professor Brainard (pronounced BRAY-nerd) is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to en...
Naked Lunch (1991) ::: 7.1/10 -- R | 1h 55min | Drama | 24 April 1992 (UK) -- After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife, and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa. Director: David Cronenberg Writers:
Postcards from the Edge (1990) ::: 6.7/10 -- R | 1h 41min | Comedy, Drama | 14 September 1990 (USA) -- A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she is forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment. Director: Mike Nichols Writers: Carrie Fisher (book), Carrie Fisher (screenplay)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) ::: 7.6/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 45min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi | 5 August 2011 (USA) -- A substance designed to help the brain repair itself gives advanced intelligence to a chimpanzee who leads an ape uprising. Director: Rupert Wyatt Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Shaitan (2011) ::: 7.2/10 -- Not Rated | 2h 1min | Action, Crime, Drama | 10 June 2011 (India) -- Five substance-abusing friends decide to fake a kidnapping in order to bribe a police constable for covering-up a hit-and-run accident. Director: Bejoy Nambiar Writers: Abhijeet Shirish Deshpande (dialogue) (as Abhijeet Deshpande), K.S.
Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ::: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (original tit ::: TV-Y7-FV | 24min | Animation, Action, Adventure | TV Series (20122017) -- Four ninja turtles, mutated by a mysterious alien substance, must rise up out of the sewers and defend their city against evil forces from both the past and present. Creators:
The Absent Minded Professor (1961) ::: 6.8/10 -- Approved | 1h 32min | Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi | 16 March 1961 (USA) -- A college professor invents an anti-gravity substance which a corrupt businessman wants for himself. Director: Robert Stevenson Writers: Bill Walsh (screenplay), Samuel W. Taylor (story)
The Ice Storm (1997) ::: 7.4/10 -- R | 1h 52min | Drama | 26 November 1997 (USA) -- In suburban New Canaan, Connecticut, 1973, middle-class families experimenting with casual sex and substance abuse find their lives beyond their control. Director: Ang Lee Writers:
The Program (2015) ::: 6.5/10 -- R | 1h 39min | Biography, Drama, Sport | 18 March 2016 (USA) -- An Irish sports journalist becomes convinced that Lance Armstrong's performances during the Tour de France victories are fueled by banned substances. With this conviction, he starts hunting for evidence that will expose Armstrong. Director: Stephen Frears Writers:
Withnail & I (1987) ::: 7.7/10 -- R | 1h 47min | Comedy, Drama | 19 June 1987 (USA) -- In 1969, two substance-abusing, unemployed actors retreat to the countryside for a holiday that proves disastrous. Director: Bruce Robinson Writer: Bruce Robinson
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Code:Realize - Sousei no Himegimi -- -- M.S.C -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Military Harem Historical Romance Fantasy Josei -- Code:Realize - Sousei no Himegimi Code:Realize - Sousei no Himegimi -- Within Cardia Beckford's hazy memories, she can recall her father Isaac and the home where she lives alone, feared as a monster by the townsfolk—for in her body, she carries a deadly substance. Embedded in her chest by her father, the eternally beating heart—also known as Horologium—has the capability to produce infinite power. However, it also makes her skin destroy anything it touches. -- -- Many in London seek the Horologium, including the terrorist organization Twilight, with whom Isaac is rumored to have close ties. To obtain the Horologium's power, the British military forces Cardia to leave her home as their prisoner. But on the road, she is whisked away by the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, who says he will steal her heart. Joining Lupin and his companions, Cardia begins a journey to discover the truth behind Isaac's connection with Twilight, her missing memories, and the Horologium within her chest. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 67,910 6.65
Comet Lucifer -- -- 8bit -- 12 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Fantasy Mecha -- Comet Lucifer Comet Lucifer -- In the world of Gift, the bowels of the planet hide a highly sought after crystalline substance known as Giftium. A young boy on Gift named Sougo Amagi inherited his interest in Giftium from his mother, a researcher. As an inhabitant of Garden Indigo, a small and prosperous miner's town, Sougo has many opportunities to forage and collect rare crystals that can only be found there. -- -- However, the most exciting treasure that Sougo discovers is not a crystal, but a person. After being pulled into a school quarrel, he plummets into the deep caverns of an old mine. There, in the abysmal depths of the earth, Felia—an enigmatic girl with red eyes and blue hair—emerges from a large crystal. Through this strange first encounter, bonds of friendship are formed between Felia and Sougo. But Felia is being pursued by a secret organization that aims to use her powers for their own benefit, and Sougo and his friends must help her, all while discovering the true nature of this girl from the crystal. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 98,220 5.85
Cybersix -- -- Telecom Animation Film -- 13 eps -- Other -- Action Adventure Romance Sci-Fi -- Cybersix Cybersix -- Anime based upon the original Argentine graphic novel series of the same name. -- -- The story follows the titular character who is a genetically engineered super-soldier; one of the creations of Dr. Von Reichter's diabolic experiments. (The fictional) Von Reichter is actually a former Nazi who conducted horrendous experiments during the second world war. He flees to South America where he continues his experiments which culminate in the creation of the "Cybers," one of which happens to be Cybersix. However, since the Cybers exhibit free will at an young age (an undesired trait), Von Reichter destroys all the Cybers to prevent a rebellion. -- -- In the present day, Cybersix is one of the Cybers who managed to escape and is living a quiet life under the alias of "Adrian Seidelman"; however, she finds out that her survival is dependent on a special substance that Von Reichter created and thus she is forced to hunt down the "Technos," a newer generation of super-soldiers created by him, in order to survive. Unintentionally, in the process, Cybersix becomes a superhero protecting the world from Dr. Von Reichter's creations and his evil plans. -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- 7,462 7.23
Godzilla 2: Kessen Kidou Zoushoku Toshi -- -- Polygon Pictures -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Adventure Sci-Fi -- Godzilla 2: Kessen Kidou Zoushoku Toshi Godzilla 2: Kessen Kidou Zoushoku Toshi -- By the advent of the 21st century, much of humanity was dead, having been trampled over by a new master, Godzilla. A select few among mankind took to the stars in a spacefaring vessel called the Aratrum in search of "the promised land," the planet Tau-e that could sustain human life. But the migration plan fails, and the remnants of the human race decide to return to Earth. But the distortions in space-time and the distance traveled means that mankind is returning to a completely changed Earth some 20,000 years later. The returnees, led by hero Haruo, prepare to take the fight to Godzilla based on a strategy that has been 20 years in the making. Carried out with the help of two alien species, the Exif and the Bilusaludo, the humans succeed in defeating Godzilla in a costly battle to the death. -- -- But the victory is short-lived. Rising from the depths of the planet is a new breed of monster, dubbed "Godzilla Earth." Evolving for 20,000 years, the creature stands 300 meters high, weighs over 100,000 tons and wields such overwhelmingly destructive power that Haruo and company have no choice but to run for their lives. -- -- Coming to Haruo's rescue, however, is Miana, a member of an aboriginal tribe called the Houtua. They are the first humanoid people the returnees have encountered. Could they descend from humans? "Our tribal god was destroyed by Godzilla. All that we have left are these eggs. Anyone who has tried to fight or resist him has been drowned in fire," the tribespeople say to Haruo, who responds with: "This is our last hope of recovering our home." -- -- Meanwhile, Bilusaludo commander, Galu-gu is elated to discover that the Houtua tribe's arrowheads are made of a nanometal or a self-sustaining metal. It had been developed in the 21st century as an "anti-Godzilla" killer weapon deployed at their decisive battle fought at the foot of Mt. Fuji, but had been destroyed before it could be activated in the form of a "Mecha-Godzilla." The nanometal was its base substance, and proof that the manufacturing plant can still be used. -- -- (Source: Official site) -- Movie - May 18, 2018 -- 30,710 6.64
Hataraku Saibou Black (TV) -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Seinen -- Hataraku Saibou Black (TV) Hataraku Saibou Black (TV) -- Due to poor lifestyle choices, a certain human's body is in constant turmoil. With germs, bacteria, and foreign substances abound, the jobs of various cells become increasingly difficult and dangerous. As some of the unfortunate ones who matured in this chaotic environment, Sekkekkyuu AA2153 and Hakkekkyuu U-1196 strive to fulfill their duties—even if it means seeing many of their fellow cells lose their lives in duty. -- -- Set in an environment vastly different from its parent story, Hataraku Saibou Black portrays the cells' struggles as they try to maintain the body's health. However, the human's condition continues to deteriorate, and whether or not these efforts will amount to something concrete depends on the cells! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 147,097 7.56
Ingress the Animation -- -- Craftar Studios -- 11 eps -- Game -- Action Game Sci-Fi Mystery -- Ingress the Animation Ingress the Animation -- A project was launched where scientists discovered a mysterious substance that can interface directly with the human brain. This substance, called "Exotic Matter (XM)," has existed since ancient times, influencing human minds and the progress of humanity. In the wake of this discovery, a battle of powerful nations and corporate giants has been unleashed. Organizations across the globe have embarked on a secret race to exploit XM. It represents both an opportunity and a threat to humanity. Two Factions seeks to control the XM. The Enlightened view XM's power as a gift that enhances human experience and discovery. The Resistance sees XM as a hostile takeover of the human mind, choosing technology as humanity's best path forward. XM, and the mystery behind it lie at the center of this battle for the fate of humanity. -- -- 2018—Now, a new struggle is about to unfold in Tokyo and across the globe. Dangerous and powerful forces seeking to exploit the potential of XM will collide. This groundbreaking project will mark the beginning of an epic augmented-reality experience combining the three elements of animation, location-based gaming, and the real world. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- ONA - Oct 18, 2018 -- 22,463 6.36
Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de -- -- Trigger -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Slice of Life Comedy Supernatural Romance School -- Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de -- During a Literature Club meeting, the four club members—along with their faculty adviser's niece—suddenly find themselves with supernatural powers. Now capable of fabricating black flames, resident chuunibyou Jurai Andou is the most ecstatic about their new abilities; unfortunately, his own is only for show and unable to accomplish anything of substance. Moreover, he is completely outclassed by those around him: fellow club member Tomoyo Kanzaki manipulates time, Jurai's childhood friend Hatoko Kushikawa wields control over the five elements, club president Sayumi Takanashi can repair both inanimate objects and living things, and their adviser's niece Chifuyu Himeki is able to create objects out of thin air. -- -- However, while the mystery of why they received these powers looms overhead, very little has changed for the Literature Club. The everyday lives of these five superpowered students continue on, albeit now tinged with the supernatural. -- -- 333,922 7.12
Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de -- -- Trigger -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Slice of Life Comedy Supernatural Romance School -- Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de -- During a Literature Club meeting, the four club members—along with their faculty adviser's niece—suddenly find themselves with supernatural powers. Now capable of fabricating black flames, resident chuunibyou Jurai Andou is the most ecstatic about their new abilities; unfortunately, his own is only for show and unable to accomplish anything of substance. Moreover, he is completely outclassed by those around him: fellow club member Tomoyo Kanzaki manipulates time, Jurai's childhood friend Hatoko Kushikawa wields control over the five elements, club president Sayumi Takanashi can repair both inanimate objects and living things, and their adviser's niece Chifuyu Himeki is able to create objects out of thin air. -- -- However, while the mystery of why they received these powers looms overhead, very little has changed for the Literature Club. The everyday lives of these five superpowered students continue on, albeit now tinged with the supernatural. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 333,922 7.12
One Piece: Heart of Gold -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Shounen -- One Piece: Heart of Gold One Piece: Heart of Gold -- A girl named Olga is pursued by both the World Government and a man named Mad Treasure, as she is the only one who knows the location of the Pure Gold, a substance that can buy the entire world. Olga ends up sailing with the Straw Hat Pirates, and they journey to find the Pure Gold on the lost island of Alchemi, which is located inside the stomach of a large angler fish named Bonbori. -- -- (Source: IMDb) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Special - Jul 16, 2016 -- 50,935 7.52
Princess Principal -- -- Actas, Studio 3Hz -- 12 eps -- Original -- Action Mystery Historical -- Princess Principal Princess Principal -- In the early 20th century, the discovery of the substance Cavorite allowed the production of advanced military technology and steered the country toward conflict. London is now divided by a wall, and the Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Albion battle a silent war where espionage is the only weapon that can destabilize the enemy. A group of girls from the prestigious Queen's Mayfaire school work as undercover spies for the Commonwealth. -- -- Led by Dorothy, an experienced driver with a striking personality, their group includes the talents of Ange le Carré, a cold-blooded liar and expert sharpshooter; Chise, a proficient samurai; and Beatrice, a voice-mimicking specialist. They use their unique individual skills for the Commonwealth to survive in a dark world filled with conspiracy, mystery, and infiltration. In the shadow of the war, they have only one goal in mind: completing their mission. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 159,821 7.72
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European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances
Extracellular polymeric substance
Ground substance
Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996
Hazardous Substances Data Bank
Hazardous Waste and Substances Sites List
HAZMAT Class 6 Toxic and infectious substances
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Headache attributed to a substance or its withdrawal
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Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles
Intoxicating Substances (Supply) Act 1985
Japanese Existing and New Chemical Substances
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
List of addiction and substance abuse organizations
List of alchemical substances
List of discredited substances
List of doping cases in sport by substance
List of SJS-inducing substances
List of substances used in rituals
Low-molecular-weight chromium-binding substance
Mental substance
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985
National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan
NCAA banned substances
No Substance
Occupational therapy and substance use disorder
Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
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Planning (Hazardous Substances) Act 1990
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Post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders
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Psychoactive Substances Act 2013
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